Causatum
by Sildae
Summary: The Sith's careful manipulations begin to unravel at the hands of unlikely saboteurs: the Chosen One's wayward Padawan, a paranoid Jedi relic, and the very men created to destroy the Sith's ancient enemy. But as the balance of power slips inexorably towards the Dark, the Light ensures hope will remain. Post S5, incorporates S6, toward SW: ROTS.
1. Prologue

Star Wars, its characters, and its images are © George Lucas and Disney.

**A/N**: Please note the rating; expect PG-13 fare in the form of non-graphic use and/or mentions of violence, drug use, sex, and Star Wars-style coarse language, plus some. Canon will be…played with. In other words, the 6 original films and TCW series will hold true from certain POVs. Postings will be every other week on Fridays.

While Rex and Ahsoka are paired for good reason in the tag, theirs is not quite the main thread of this story. This is most definitely a slow-burn romance.

Note the prologue references events of the Season 6 episode, _The Lost One_, and the events prior to _The Phantom Menace_.

Heaps of gratitude for the kind, gentle, and brilliant soul, **impoeia**, who has been the absolute most helpful and patient of betas, and thank you, dear readers, who chanced a peek!

Prologue

* * *

cau·sa·tum : noun \kau̇ˈzätəm, kȯˈzāt-\ : something that is caused : effect

* * *

_Four months, fourteen days before the Blockade of Naboo_

A bright flare bloomed in the black of space; for the ambassadorial shuttle cresting Oba-Diah's pale, sand-blurred moon, there was no chance: the spark spun too close—too fast—for sensors to lock onto, sub-light engines burning a sluggish evasion.

An electronic shriek warned Sifo-Dyas the moment before impact.

* * *

_Nine years and eleven months before the Blockade of Naboo_

"Mind yourself on Felucia," the other Jedi said.

Sifo nearly winced. His associate's voice had a guttural, stilted severity to it, as if he had somehow forgotten the mechanics of speech.

They walked together, cowled by the perennial twilight of an abandoned Coruscanti industrial park, leagues and leagues beneath even the transrails and narrow streets of the working class. Sifo-Dyas had hoped for a moment of solitude when he'd descended to this level, but the other Jedi had appeared at his side almost instantly, like a particularly long-limbed mynock dislodged from between the old husks of factories and fallen mills.

"Traveling soon?" Sifo asked. "I wasn't aware of a need for parley among the shamans."

His associate chuckled—an unnerving sound, too similar to a lightsaber sputtering beneath an inept hand.

"You are dead there."

Sifo-Dyas' jaw tightened.

For a long moment, he let the silence speak, broken only by the distant, ceaseless thrum of machinery.

"A morbid bent for so early in the day," Sifo finally said; an irony for them both. It was always night at these levels, where they both had lived and worked and spilled blood, one way or another.

"I have seen it." The other hesitated. "Yet you will reek of spice."

A prickle of awareness touched the back of Sifo's neck, then ghosted away, light as a whisperfly. Sifo followed the Force, found it bright with fractured light, close to the other Jedi.

He spoke the truth.

But_ spice? _Felucians preferred their own concoctions of hallucinogenics, not the mainline of the wider galaxy. A flicker of the Force urged Sifo to connect the strands—the _intent_—but there was no clarity; not here, deep in the shadows of the old city.

No—this would take patience. "One must accept the inevitable," Sifo said, "regardless of the journey."

Oh, but his associate didn't like that. Fists clenched and unclenched. From the corner of his eye, Sifo watched him carefully.

But the other settled and they walked together for some time.

Darkness dipped and wove between them; they passed silently under an arcade of crushed girders, then an ancient millinery. Sifo could see stubbed claws tapping a 'saber, a long face caught in ghostly profile.

The shadows shifted across the other Jedi's shoulders, melted against the bulky lines of his robes, just another misshapen tower of debris among all the others. _How appropriate an image_, Sifo thought, although he knew that little thread of resentment should have been released years ago.

Even now, Sifo refused to grant him a reaction.

But he wasn't against a little needling.

"Perhaps it will be quick," Sifo mused. He deliberately edged his voice with impatience, close to—but not quite—patronizing; he heard rather than saw the other's telling shuffle, the creak of leather. "A yerdua poison. Or a skullblade to the back."

A quick draw of breath, and—finally—Sifo saw the cracks. The other Jedi drew close, close enough that Sifo could smell the rank damp that seemed to cling to all his species.

"No." The Jedi's nostrils fluttered in distaste. "It was a strange vision, yes—but the smell..." He drew closer to Sifo, eyes flashing green-gold. "Distinct."

Without answering, Sifo continued on his way; for the moment, there was only the dry sound of old pods and sloughed metal snapping like bones beneath his boots.

But his associate wasn't giving up. "I only tell you so—"

"You have told me." Sifo stopped to face the other. "Your business is not at these levels. I suggest you leave to safer venues."

The Jedi stiffened, but after a long moment, simply bowed. "As you wish, Master Jedi."

* * *

_Four months, fourteen days before the Blockade of Naboo_

Of course. _The Pykes_. How had he not _seen_?

The shriek of metal deafened him as the shuttle's engines collapsed, imploding inward with a throbbing, choking whine.

Sifo-Dyas couldn't tear his eyes from the wildly spinning gimbal-read, even as the pressure tugged and pushed him down against the console.

A rush of the Force—he lurched—there was light and heat, and it all shattered against his mind.

Seconds—minutes—an eternity—Sifo thought he heard a shout; felt the swell of terror from the bloodied figure at his side.

Surely Silman was dead.

* * *

_Nine years and eleven months before the Blockade of Naboo_

Sifo left the other Jedi to the abandoned park and let that nagging thread of irritation slide away into the darkness.

A lifetime spent in the Underworld meant an intimate knowledge of the discarded innards of Coruscant's belly, the tracts and trails and haunts of those who always knew more than they should. But for _this_ particular associate to have picked up on some sort of unknown, by Force or otherwise...

It was unacceptable.

Sifo-Dyas spent the next eight hours feeding his own contacts certain kernels of truth; the delicate web of the Underworld would strum and bring him back other seeds to sift through; rumors and words that he would use his particular skills to discard the miasma of garbage from those few, clear truths.

Ironic, perhaps, that the strands in his own mind remained quiet. It was as if the Force waited, watchful; all of it focused outward, far from Coruscant, far from the center of the galaxy.

And if the Force demanded patience, he would accede.

Hours later, Sifo surfaced to the smooth stone and clean light of the Temple and his small, bare quarters, content to let the eddies and ebb of the Force nudge against his senses, strong here in the Temple proper and as aged and familiar as the stone around him.

But when he sank to his knees on his old, threadbare meditation mat, it was to the rush of the Force—drenching, clutching, _bleeding_.

It pulled and cut—sharp and bright as his own blade—blinding with its faces and armored bodies and the flashing pain of fire. The Temple stone felt hot beneath his hands—molten as lava—seeping into his mind and flowing bright—and then a heaving, rising hunger.

Dark. Wild. _Insatiable_.

Sifo wheezed, desperate for air—reached for something, _anything _familiar to anchor him—but there was only his lightsaber, cool beneath his palm and pulsing with its own flicker of familiarity.

It wasn't until he lurched out of his quarters and stumbled forward—always forward, against stone and well-worn steps—that the Force released him.

And there, at the Spire of Tranquility's summit, Sifo managed to find his center again.

The gleaming lines of Coruscant's wealth zigzagged below, vivid and bright against the hazy surface night. From above, the ecumenopolis looked clean, luminous, benign.

It wasn't possible.

It _couldn't_ be.

This time, Sifo-Dyas sank into the endless stream of thought and time and intent; let the light and dark mingle in crystalline focus; let that sharp-edged clarity guide him as it had through decades in the Underworld.

Perhaps...

Perhaps a shadow could exist in places where he could not.

* * *

_Four months, fourteen day_s _before the_ _Blockade of Naboo_

Around him, outside him, metal screamed against metal and blood pooled—hot, metallic, _still living_—in his mouth.

With a bone-shattering slam, the shuttle hit atmosphere and began to burn through.

But even through the heat and pain, he felt another presence, a familiar Force-spike needled with the ice of intent and a cold, long-held fury.

Surely not...here?

* * *

_One year before_ _the Blockade of Naboo_

"Complacency. Deception."

Sifo-Dyas' old friend and fellow Master was seated in a deep, nerf-hide chair, deep in the shadows of the estate's old library. He'd lit only one lamp, and the shadows were cast in wide swaths across every piece of heavy furniture, all too ornate for Sifo's tastes.

The man had studied the swirl of a golden liqueur for almost five minutes, long fingers idly turning his goblet. From his seat beyond a low table, Sifo watched each carefully etched edge flash in the setla-lamplight.

"The Senate reeks of it," his old friend went on. There was an edge to his voice; a strain not normally there, breaking off the cultured roll and cutting short each consonant. Sifo watched him tip the goblet, watched him scrutinize the flow of liquid as it spilled out of the glass and into the cool air of the library. But instead of splashing down onto the wrodian carpet's thick weave, the liqueur beaded into a fine mist, then spun as a sluggish, airborne whorl, oddly mesmerizing, every drop as sharp and bright as the goblet's chiseled glass work.

The man across from Sifo had aged almost exponentially since the incident on Galidraan, far more than he should have. In the glow of the setla-lamp, the silver of the man's hair shone bright, gleaming like the tiny drops of liquid.

"Nothing—only these petty quarrels—will direct the Council, if we supplicate before the Senate any longer," his old friend went on. With a disgusted flick of a finger, the Master curled the liqueur back into the goblet, and after a moment of scrutiny, downed it in one swallow. "These recent conflicts have only proven as much." He hesitated, then reached for the glass bottle of Pantoran cognac to pour another three fingers-worth into the goblet. "It is simply a matter of time before they find themselves unable to break their gaze from this 'rising darkness' you speak so much of."

Sifo remained mute, his own thoughts far away, once again focused on Coruscant; back beneath the skylanes and shining towers, in the dark places where greater, naked truths always seemed to lurk. A name had been whispered, one that flickered along the razor-edged pulse of the Force; an anathema, but he couldn't trace its source.

_Tyranus_.

His seeds had found sustenance; and yet the roots went deeper than he could ever have expected.

"Shall your silence speak for you, Sifo-Dyas?"

Sifo pulled himself back to the library, to meet his old friend's weathered gaze, bright with something Sifo couldn't place.

"They?" Sifo asked carefully.

Dooku's eyes gleamed in the setla-light. His mouth curved in the barest of smiles. "_We_," he corrected himself.

Sifo allowed a sigh, as if in weary acceptance of the same old arguments. "An uncomfortable yet unavoidable truth," he said. "But we must press on. There is no other way."

"Ah." Dooku's intense gaze turned shrewd. "Is there not?"

_There_, the reality of the matter. The Force hummed, but all too briefly.

Sifo studied the elder Jedi, traced the deep lines around the man's eyes, the strain written there in tiny cracks, fractured as a shell-spider's web. In months past, Sifo had recognized the shudder of indecision within his friend's Force-signature—and below that, an unsettling pulse of anger.

They were both Masters, carved by decades of service to the Jedi Order, both still members of the High Council. Dooku was brilliant, adept; a force of sheer will and indomitable character. Together, they should've been able to observe the changing galaxy and air more than the same grievances from years past.

They should've been able to _do_ more, rather than be swept along the endless tide of corruption and bloated dalliance that the Senate urged the Order into.

"We study and consider the mysteries of the Force for millennia," Dooku went on. He rose from his chair and stepped away into the smooth gray light of a diamond-paned window. As a silhouette, he seemed the very essence of the noble he'd been born as. "Will the Senate simply argue for us that the strong are able—and thus the weak shall be unable?"

Unspoken was the culmination of such a theory, hanging like a Force-bent mist between them.

The skin of Sifo's face suddenly felt taut and hot as he stared at that familiar profile.

"As Jedi," Sifo answered slowly, "we could never allow such things."

His old friend chuckled, a low and discordantly gentle sound. "No, we could not, Master Sifo-Dyas."

Sifo considered Dooku for a long moment. The light shifted across the deep, aquiline planes of the other man's face, washing the color of his skin to a flimsi-thin texture. He lifted the Vors-glass to his lips, tendons pulling and stretching across his hands.

The Force shivered, fractured lines of dappled light and red.

"Tell me the truth, my friend," Sifo finally said.

Dooku stilled, profile sharp, goblet held to his lips, a flash of sunlight suddenly refracted against its crystalline edges.

Sifo-Dyas leaned forward, arms folded across his knees. "Do you think it possible that the Sith have returned?"

* * *

_Four months, fourteen day_s _before the_ _Blockade of Naboo_

The Chancellor would not be pleased.

Silman, personal aide to Valorum, fought the urge to step back, away from the indolent splay of the Pyke throne's occupant: Jorn, long-reigning Sec and unrivaled head of the Pyke families. The tall, grey-skinned Sec was robed and jeweled in typical Pyke fashion, although Silman noted with disgust the spice stains smeared across the Sec's sleeves.

"Surely the Pykes recognize an advantageous position within the Republic's borders would—" Silman began, for the third time.

"Advantageous?" Jorn interrupted. He stroked two jewel-ringed barbels below his carapaced skull, thin mouth drawn in a contemplative line. He lifted a carved spice-reed to his lips, drew deeply, and sent a stream of ruddy smoke in Silman's direction. "For the Pykes, perhaps. Or for the Pykes, perhaps not."

Before Silman could do more than open his mouth again, the Jedi Master at his side reached over and briefly touched his belled sleeve, silencing him.

The Sec of the Pykes unnerved him; the Jedi unnerved him more.

"Yes, advantageous for the Pykes," Master Sifo-Dyas said, his voice calm, oddly intimate. He linked his hands behind his back as he stepped forward, gaze never leaving the Sec's luminous eyes. "To bring the eyes of so many to your activities—would not the Pykes prefer to remain…unseen?"

The Jedi lifted a holorecorder. Above it, an image flickered to life, revealing a corpse: an unfortunate Twi'lek named Ferrik-Len, spread-eagle and pierced through by a decorative spire. Even as a hazy image, the incongruity of high, clean mercantile plazas and pampered citizenry clashed obscenely against the filthy, blood-stained figure.

A crime lord's murder was hardly newsworthy. But the Pyke's decision to display the man prominently across Monument Plaza and slice the image into various advertisement feeds to parade the fact…

_That _had been unexpected. The Black Sun's response had been swift and violent.

The Sec slipped the spice-reed into his mouth again, but the smoke merely curled there, drifting up to blur the bright purple of his eyes.

Minutes slid by.

Silman repressed a shudder when an addict crawled across the stone slabs to touch his robe's embroidered hem, but a Pyke guard moved forward to kick the rough-furred creature away. It gave a pained canine yelp and subsided into the spice-hazed shadows.

"The Pykes know the power of the Jedi, yes," Jorn finally replied. "But what power do the Jedi hold among the Pyke's chosen alliances?"

The Jedi Master remained still; the holorecorder's image continued to rotate in the waiting silence. Jorn turned the spice-reed between grey-plated fingers, vivid gaze fixed on Sifo-Dyas'.

"What greater power do the Pykes expect these alliances to offer?" Sifo-Dyas said, voice still mild, as if they were discussing the weather. "It would not be wise to rest heavily on presumptions, or even tales of...legends."

Silman noted the Jedi Master's careful nuance.

The Sec settled his reed across the lap of a spice-dazed Togruta slave girl and, for a moment, seemed to observe the Jedi with an appreciative nod. But then he leaned forward, one hand curled around the heavy stone of his throne. "The Pykes have found favor where the Pykes prefer. There is nothing for you here, Jedi."

A rub of unease, red-tinted like the spice-smoke, shot between Silman's shoulders. The haze seemed to deepen, burning his lungs and blurring the Pyke's court into nothing more than an odd, half-forgotten impression.

But why did it all seem only a memory?

There'd been a call—a discreet chirp of the Jedi's comm that had rattled through the stillness between the Sec and the Jedi Master.

No, this was all deception—he and the Jedi were no longer on Oba Diah. The Jedi had been called to Felucia by his Council.

Pain lanced through Silman's body, bright and hot.

But why would _he _go to Felucia? As the Supreme Chancellor's voice for the negotiations, Silman should've stayed, should've continued the dialogue with the Pyke Syndicate. There was too much at risk. Surely the Jedi knew that an all-out war in the Undercity was more important than a few painted reptiles rattling their spears?

But the Jedi insisted, had gripped his shoulder and muttered, like some madman, "Be careful. We are being hunted."

Perhaps the odd man had sniffed a bit too deeply in the Pyke's vaulted court; once aboard the ambassadorial shuttle, the Jedi had even turned his sharp gaze on Silman. "Remember this, Silman. All is deception."

Were all Jedi this mad? Silman had tucked away his complaints, but made a mental note to address the Chancellor on the effectiveness of Jedi in matters of negotiation.

Until the moment their shuttle was hit.

He tasted blood and heard screaming, but he couldn't distinguish his own raw voice from the ship's dying shriek.

He could still see, though.

The blurred sands of the moon, pale as his last woman's thighs, filled the viewport in front of him and without thinking, his fingers clenched desperately around the co-pilot's steering yolk.

Beside him hunched the useless shell of the Jedi, stained red—_s__o they bleed and die just like the rest of us_—

He yanked, felt the wetness of blood between his fingers—_nose up nose UP_—as the yolk slipped from his grasp.

A horizon appeared in the viewport, black as the Underworld. The sensors' shrieks ended with a rattling roar; sound exploded against his mind.

Surely he was dead.

* * *

Spice. Silman could still smell it; still _reeked _of it.

"Silman."

Something shook his body, then a crack like lightning shot through his veins, and he gasped for breath.

"Open your eyes."

The voice was familiar, but strangled by pain and something else.

"Now, Silman!"

It was an effort that cost him more pain than he'd ever thought to bear, but he followed the order; a discolored blur hovered over him, took shape, sharpened into the once-dead Jedi's face, all edged in bright blue and dark shadow. Silman wondered if he'd been wrong—maybe Jedi don't die.

But blood ran in clotted rivulets down the other man's face; his hair was streaked with it and his robes were damp and heavy. The Jedi's lightsaber, alight and humming, cast him in that vivid blue and painted his blood black against his pallid skin.

"They will come, Silman. The Jedi will come for you."

Time and space drifted, shifting like the pale sands he'd seen before, and he wondered whatever happened to that woman. He'd enjoyed her company.

"Silman!"

The Jedi shook him, and the pain that lanced through his body sent him heaving to his side. But the Jedi wouldn't leave him be, and in a crushing grip, he held Silman's jaw and forced him to meet his wild-eyed gaze. "Tell them!"

The Jedi shook him again, and _hells_, it hurt.

"Remember, Silman. _All is deception_."


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N**: From one betrayal to another... This chapter references events from Season 5: _The Wrong Jedi._

* * *

"You lack faith in the Jedi."

"I find their tactics ineffective. The Jedi Code prevents them from going far enough to achieve victory, to do whatever it takes to win, the very reason why peacekeepers should not be leading a war."

―Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Admiral Tarkin

* * *

_Two years, two months after the First Battle of Geonosis_

_"Padawan Tano, how plead you?"_

It was over.

"_You will be stripped of your Padawan status, and shall forfeit all rank and privileges within the Grand Army of the Republic."_

After _everything_—clone troopers and Tarkin, Ventress and _Force_, even doubting her _own_ mind—the Council's cold dismissal hit far harder, burning through her skin like a blaster bolt to the back.

_How _could this have happened? And _why_?

"_You will be turned over to the Republic courts to await your trial and whatever punishment they will set for you."_

Why wouldn't they just _listen_? Had she ever done anything to make them doubt her loyalties, to make them think that she would even be capable of doing _any_ of this?

She could sense Anakin behind her, boiling with an impotent fury that thrummed against her mind with bruising strength. The Council high overhead seemed superbly immune to it. Or maybe they just didn't care.

_"Henceforth, you are barred from the Jedi Order."_

Six of the Temple's faceless guards escorted her to the north entrance and into the waiting circle of an equally faceless—but all-too-familiar—Coruscant shocktrooper squad, Commander Fox at their head. Ahsoka felt the commander's grim satisfaction, could almost _see_ the barely restrained hostility rolling off the other clones. They were soldiers, trained to follow every order, but they _hated_ her and the pain of it hit hard and low.

With a distinct _snick-hiss_, Fox snapped a set of binders over her wrists and an icy crack, like the too-close skim of a vibroblade, shot up her arms, across her skin, and through her mind._ Force-block_.

In her prison cell, mercifully free of the binders but still tingling to the tips of her lekku with the thrum of Force-wards, time slid by in disjointed fragments, broken only by short visits from either a stone-faced Admiral Tarkin or an increasingly desperate Anakin.

It was during one of Anakin's visits that Ahsoka fully realized the vast depths her Order had thrown her into. The Republic's convoluted justice system had grown ever more closed and dictatorial beneath the war's heavy weight, and when it came down to semantics, she wasn't even a citizen of Coruscant—not without the claim of Jedi on her shoulder.

She didn't even have the right to a civil lawyer.

"Are you even allowed to be here?" Ahsoka asked, some part of her hating the dull sound of her own voice, as Anakin ran his hands through his hair and paced back and forth in front of her.

"I've got to do _something_!" And just as quickly, he disappeared.

She'd sat for hours in her cell, picking at the bacta patches they'd applied to the bruises on her ribs and hip, wondering if she'd ever see him again.

Two hours before her trial, he'd charged back into her cell, Padmé close behind. His Force-signature had hardened to a grim, coal-dark burn that flared only when she mentioned Ventress' involvement—and then he was gone again.

"Let's go over your defense," Padmé said, steadfast and indomitable, but Ahsoka could sense the senator's agitation...and a flicker of fear.

Too soon, troopers came with heavy blasters and those Force-block binders, but before they could march her off, Padmé folded Ahsoka's hands between hers. Ahsoka recognized the hard glint in the senator's eyes and gratefully squeezed Padmé's hands in return. Ahsoka had seen that particular expression of Padmé's before; it always bode poorly for whomever the senator might face off across the vast Senate theater. Surely Ahsoka had _some_ chance.

"It'll be fine, Ahsoka," Padmé said, a quiet sincerity to her voice. "We both know how Anakin is."

Ahsoka attempted a wry smile at her Master's expense. "Down to the last second, of course."

Padmé's return smile was warm and surprisingly reassuring.

_Please, Anakin. Hurry._

Through the corridors and over the endless stretches of durasteel plating, Ahsoka actually held onto _some_ small bit of hope...until faced with the tribunal chamber.

It echoed with a cold sterility; every edge and incline hard and rigid, every dip and curve of perforated durasteel sharp against her montrals. Despite the Force-block, she sensed a lingering taint of fear—could _smell_ it, an acrid stench that not even the air scrubbers could remove—a remnant from the hundreds of sentients who had faced off against the Republic's military might.

Only now, for all its towering, grand scale—_Really, could the GAR not do _anything _that didn't involve a few hundred tons of durasteel?_—the chamber was practically crowded; every one of its side chambers and annexes were filled to bursting with senators and her former Council, and afloat between each alcove and over the bridges flitted probe droids, some of them obviously military standard and others emblazoned with the Holonet news stations' sigils.

And high above, as always, sat the Supreme Chancellor.

"Ahsoka Tano. You have been charged with sedition against the Jedi Order and the Republic itself. This court will decide your fate."

The last time she'd stood in that chamber, clone trooper Dogma had hunched above the repulsor platform like a whipped and broken anooba, waiting for his judgment. She remembered the desperation in his eyes—the _longing_—as he'd searched the faces of his commanding officers.

But he'd remained mute and merely bowed his head when the sentence fell.

"When you are found guilty, I ask the court that the full extent of the law be brought down upon you, including penalty of death."

The first time she'd faced the newly-christened _Admiral _Tarkin, in the prison cell after Letta's death, his undisguised hate had surprised her. It seeped away from a righteous battle-fury—that heady, soaring strength she would always associate with the 501st—down into something bitterly cold and calculating, formidable as the stone monoliths standing guard over the GAR's Coruscanti complex. It was too similar to Anakin's anger—that surging, almost unbearable force that could lift mountains if it meant victory.

But _his _was twisted into something...else, and all of it was focused solely on her.

She wondered how many of the non-clone GAR personnel felt that way, maybe towards her or maybe towards all Jedi; if maybe she had just never noticed that growing distrust or distaste or _whatever_ while learning to keep up with her Master—and then learning to lead on her own.

"A Jedi may have been responsible for the murder," Padmé urged, her voice rising in well-practiced appeal as she stepped out onto the defense bridge, "but that Jedi is not Ahsoka Tano. Members of the Court, you are prosecuting the wrong Jedi!"

But as the echo of Padmé's voice faded, Tarkin's slow applause glanced off Ahsoka's montrals, each clap too similar to the numbing blows from another's lightsaber.

"Well said, Senator Amidala." The Admiral's voice, carefully cultured and measured, sent an odd shiver down Ahsoka's spine. "However, if she is innocent, then why was she seen conspiring with known Separatist terrorist, Asajj Ventress?"

Ignoring the icy spasms of her binders and the quick, admonishing headshake from Padmé, Ahsoka jerked forward. "Ventress set me up! My Master will prove that!"

"And where _is_ your Master?" the Admiral asked, a sudden edge to his voice.

_Doesn't like his golden boy where he can't see him_. The thought ricocheted through her mind and surprised her with that quick, dawning realization.

But why…?

"He's trying to find the _real_ murderer!" she snapped.

The hard planes of the admiral's face turned skeletal and a cold light blazed in his eyes. "Perhaps he should be looking at _you_!"

In the brief moment she held his gaze, another chill washed over her—but this time with frigid clarity.

She had trusted the Masters and followed them eagerly for sixteen years—and now, she saw that same misplaced trust at work. The Jedi had offered themselves up as bloody sacrifices to a Republic, only to be circled around and fed on, like a squabbling flock of opportunistic harvaps over a carcass.

Ahsoka just happened to be next.

She only had to glance at the so-called "evidence" offered by the GAR; Ventress—and whoever else might've been working with her—had decided to destroy Ahsoka as both Jedi and GAR commander, and Tarkin only had to grab the hover-ball and run with it.

And now, there was nothing—absolutely nothing—she could do about it.

If she'd just had more time…

She wondered if her execution would immediately follow the trial; if they would just take her out behind the barracks and shoot her like a diseased akk dog. From the hostility radiating off Tarkin, still stinging her skin through the Force-block, she deserved no better. Guilt or innocence had nothing to do with it.

Whatever game Tarkin had decided to play in all this, he'd won.

* * *

"You really think Commander Tano would do this?" Fives asked in an undertone, stepping close to Rex's side and giving the common-room's main viewscreen—and the mass of troopers gathered around it—a dark look.

The trial hadn't started until 0900 Coruscant time, but the Holonet had burst into a frenzy from the moment Ahsoka's run hit the news-streams. Between accounts from so-called "professional" panels and assorted feeds, the vast majority of Torrent Company had glued themselves to the screen like sol-struck nunas.

But then, Rex couldn't seem to drag himself away, either.

By some unspoken consensus—or just by the expression on his face—his troopers were giving him a wide berth, so that he stood in a circle of empty space several meters behind the rest of his lounging company, arms folded across his chest and chin tucked close to his pauldron. On the screen, Ahsoka stood defiantly in the middle of the repulsor stand, a bright burst of sienna against all the rigid lines of black and grey.

He hated all of it; it was like Umbara, but reversed and twisted into a drowning mass of images and data.

Ahsoka wasn't the first high-profile case to run across the Holonet; the war brought with it hundreds of captured Separatists and suspected sympathizers, and whenever he'd bothered to glance at a newsfeed over the past two years, every trial was only fodder for some other agenda. Rex never could wrap his head around any of it.

But to showcase _this_ one, like their commander was the next-best thing to a nerf-and-Wookiee show, left Rex with a bitter taste in his mouth. Something was off about the entire, fekked-up mess.

And he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

If the situation were different, he might've been entertained by the absurdity of it all. It was a brighter, cleaner, better-dressed version of Circus Horrificus, and the high-glossed holojournalists and their constant clamor over each other reminded him of a gratifying incident on Moorja, when a certain ARC managed to scramble the droids' receivers. Squadron after squadron of B1s had done an excellent job of shooting each other down—and for a week after, Fives had worn the satisfied grin of a kill-happy nexu.

Rex glanced at that particular ARC. "Weren't you due back a few days ago?"

Fives was still fully kitted out in his gear, even _smelled_ of the stale air from a military transport, and the helmet in his hands sported a few fresh scrapes. Rex doubted he'd checked in yet with Special Ops, per procedure, before stopping by Torrent Company's barracks. But then, this was Fives.

"Got delayed." Fives snorted, eyes on the viewscreen. "Ringo Vinda isn't going to be easy."

Rex shook his head. No Separatist blockade was ever easy, but this was Admiral-kriffing-_Trench_, back from the dead like some Endor shipwreck. When he'd reviewed the stats and parameters for the objective—a joint task between only the complements of the 501st and 330th—he knew the results wouldn't be pretty, even with an entire team of ARCs to help pave the way beforehand.

The Seps were wearing them all down. Even the Jedi.

"How much have you heard?" Rex asked, keeping his voice low and jerking his chin toward the screen.

"Enough."

Rex shot him a pointed look. Fives shrugged. "They sent out reports. Just basics, but...it didn't look good."

No, not between all of Corellia's nine hells did _any_ of it look good.

After they'd brought Ahsoka in from the Undercity, Rex had retreated to his office and stared at piles of flimsiwork and datapads and tried to focus on something—_anything—_else. Three hours later, he couldn't remember a single word that had scrolled past on a 'pad he didn't recall picking up.

When he found himself in the common-room late last night, he wasn't surprised to see dozens of his men hunkered down to watch the unfolding drama.

But the flashes of Ahsoka shown before the trial—mostly grainy, disjointed shots caught by security cams as she leapt through a low-level transrail—hurt in ways that seemed just as grainy and disjointed, as if his skin didn't fit right anymore. The feeling only intensified as the day wore on and the trial began.

Onscreen, Senator Amidala swept forward across the defense bridge, looking serene beneath a fierce metallic headdress and the most colorless dress Rex had ever seen the senator wear. It had the unfortunate effect of blending her into the rest of the chamber, like a bit of the wall in motion.

But Fives' presence at Rex's side seemed to break the unspoken rule of space for the captain, and as Rex watched the senator begin her speech, he noticed Kix straighten from his perch against a hard-backed chair and wade through the other troopers toward Rex, his face dark with intent.

"If _she _did it," the medic asked, folding his arms across his chest as he stepped close to Rex, "is there any Jedi that won't turn?"

Rex fought back a sigh. None of Torrent Company's troopers turned to look at their captain, but he could tell at least a few had heard the medic and were waiting for an answer. A handful, he noted, were troopers that had wandered in from several other 501st companies and were openly curious.

Of course they were. Torrent was known for fearlessness and body counts and securing the most impossible of impossible objectives, and the fact that Torrent worked most often with the "Hero With No Fear" and his fierce little Padawan wasn't lost on anyone.

And anyone in his company would know the juiciest gossip concerning said Jedi, especially the captain.

_Kriffing hell, Kix_.

"I'm just a soldier," Rex said slowly, "but from where I'm standing, it doesn't look like they've proved she's done anything."

"Captain—"

"That's all that I need to say, Kix." Rex knew his voice was harsher than it needed to be. "We fight for the Republic, and part of that is the right to a fair trial."

The medic shook his head, but subsided and moved away to join Jesse, who sat with his back to the screen, absently flipping sabacc cards along one of the battered tables. Judging from the creases along his forehead, Jesse didn't like any of it—on the screen or otherwise—but couldn't ignore it, either.

Kix's attitude wasn't surprising—he'd never been quite the same since Umbara—but it still bothered Rex.

"Funny how Krell never got much of a mention," Fives muttered, leaning toward Rex. "This rates internal comm-reports on the hour and every GAR and public holo."

"This...hit a bit closer to home, Fives."

Fives grunted a non-answer.

The viewscreen cut to Ahsoka, the familiar spark of determination still in her eyes as she stared up at the Chancellor's balcony. In one smooth sweep, the cam rotated to include the lined and weary, but somehow still compelling face of the Supreme Chancellor, high above her slim form.

Something deep in him ached, and he wanted to hunch his shoulders against the feeling.

"You didn't answer my question, Rex," Fives noted, although he kept his voice low.

The image of three troopers, charred and cut through by the unmistakable lines of a lightsaber, burned bright in Rex's mind.

"No," he admitted.

Fives turned to meet Rex's gaze. "No," the ARC repeated, slowly. "You didn't? Or...you don't?"

"It just…doesn't add up." He shook his head. "None of it does."

Rex recognized the sudden, shrewd gleam in Fives' eyes; it usually led to trouble. And explosions.

"What's missing, then?" the ARC asked.

Rex flicked his gaze toward the screen as Tarkin moved forward. The cam had swiveled to include the half-shadowed alcoves lining the tribunal chamber's walls, all filled with the seated figures of senators and Council members. He rubbed absently at the back of his neck. "Nothing seems to make any sense—not even the evidence."

"Yeah?"

"When she ran, it was—" Beautiful. Horrifying. "I saw three dead troopers, but kark it if I can get access to those feeds. Not even the _general_ could get access, and that _really_ doesn't make sense. And when she was out in the open, she could've deflected or—" He stopped, unable to say it, another dark night too vivid in his mind.

"Yeah, I saw."

It took Rex a moment, and then he turned, exasperated. "Fives."

The ARC shot him a quick grin. "Wasn't me this time. I'm a decent slicer, but not as good as some."

"Then why'd you say you only heard the basics? Fek, Fives, you're in the barracks. Drop the assignment _osik_."

Fives shrugged, unabashed, but gave the captain an oddly assessing once-over. "Wanted to know what you thought."

Rex shook his head, still irritated. "Someday you're going to dig yourself into trouble that you can't get yourself out of."

Fives only chuckled and turned the helmet in his hands, fingers tracing its blue-painted lines before tucking the bucket beneath one arm. "Ah, relax, Rex. It's always been worth it."

Rex narrowed his eyes. "All right, then. What did you see?"

Fives glanced back at the viewscreen and tapped his T-visor. "It's what we didn't see. All the feeds were chopped, including the HUDs. Just a nice cut—" He emphasized with the flat of his free hand, slicing through the air, "—right from her sleeping like a tooka kitten to running up on the Wall."

"That doesn't exactly clear her name." He noticed Kix, sitting stiff and still, and lowered his voice to a hiss. "You got past the encryptions. That doesn't necessarily mean she couldn't."

"It's one thing to be a passive observer in a system, especially ours." Fives shook his head. "You can't just turn off the feed; the system isn't designed that way. My—eh—colleague didn't like what that meant, either."

"What _does_ that mean?"

"A lot of effort went into keeping the entire prison sector in the dark for about an hour, the night Ahsoka ran."

Yet the GAR had presented holo evidence—which included _five_ dead troopers on a segment of corridor he had seen, personally, empty and body-free during the chase.

A chill crawled along the back of the captain's neck. He shifted on his feet, suddenly unable to watch the hard face of Admiral Tarkin as the officer's icy composure seemed to break against Ahsoka's sudden outburst.

_"And where _is_ your Master?"_

_"He's trying to find the _real_ murderer!"_

_"Perhaps he should be looking at _you_!"_

The admiral's words faded into a deep, hanging silence. Rex watched Ahsoka tuck her chin to her chest in frustration and his gut twisted uncomfortably.

Rex had told Commander Fox the truth, even as he'd stared at the three burned bodies of his brothers—the _real_ bodies—on the prison corridor floor and smelled the char of flesh through his bucket's filters: he knew Ahsoka. He knew she had come a long way from that moment she'd attached herself to Skywalker's side on Christophsis, knew she was fully capable of taking care of herself and could hold her own against the worst the galaxy could throw at her. He'd _seen_ it.

He knew she still had a hard time controlling her impulses, and that sometimes her emotions got the best of her.

He also knew she was an utterly horrible liar.

Rex rubbed a hand across his face, suddenly wishing he could drown out the sound of the final addresses and part of him knowing the trial should not have moved so quickly—and another, shameful part of him wanting to ignore what Fives left unsaid.

Something was rotten about all of it.

"So," Fives finally said, "what are you going to do about it?"

"_Fives_," Rex growled.

The ARC's expression instantly hardened. "You'd let her die?"

It was a gut punch. His ears rang and spots flashed nauseatingly across his vision. It wouldn't be like Umbara—and over a year later, he still struggled with what he had allowed, what would have happened if the man beside him hadn't convinced Rex's own troopers to do the right thing.

Because Rex wouldn't step forward and say those words himself.

Ahsoka's execution would be clean and cold, far away from her men, as impersonal and dispassionate as the rest of Coruscant. There wouldn't be any chance for a last minute, desperate appeal.

He'd failed his own brothers before. Would he fail Ahsoka, too?

At a sudden shout from behind, he stepped deftly aside just as a brother's arm shot around Fives' neck. "You vat-head—you're late!"

Tup, wearing fatigue grays and with his long hair still wet from a post-gym shower, was promptly thrown down to the durasteel floor, although the trooper managed to twist away to his feet with a laugh and a nod towards Fives' bucket. "Nice paint job. Did the droids help?"

Rex took another step away from the two brothers to lean against a support pillar, hating that he was grateful for the interruption and unable to re-focus on the trial. What _could_ he do? Fek, they were in the middle of the GAR's karking HQ, the whole of the 501st pinned down by orders that came from up high enough to give a rock-jumper like him vertigo.

"Thinned 'em out so you don't get all that hair blasted off," Fives was saying as the ARC reached over to grip Tup's shoulder. He then thumped him hard enough to make the other trooper wince.

"Ah," Tup wheezed, rotating the abused shoulder, "you don't have to make excuses. All that fancy gear's just making you soft."

Jesse, who had finally looked up from his sabacc set at Tup's arrival, snorted an abrupt laugh.

"You karking—"

"Shut it!" snapped a sergeant from in front of the viewscreen. "They've got the verdict."

Already? Rex cursed himself; he should've paid attention.

"That was fast," Tup commented dryly, turning toward the screen. "They'll acquit her."

Rex threw a look at the trooper, disturbed by his lack of concern. Tup was one of the few Rex hadn't seen stick close to the Holonet feed.

"What makes you so sure?" Kix countered, swiveling in his seat to face Tup, his expression fierce.

Tup only shrugged.

_"Ahsoka Tano, by an overwhelming count of—"_

_"Chancellor!"_

"_There's_ the general," Fives muttered, staring avidly at the screen.

At Skywalker's appearance, a flurry of noise swept the common-room; Rex could see the Supreme Chancellor speak, but Palpatine's words were drowned out by the rush of chatter.

"Quiet!" he barked. Silence was immediate.

"_I am here_," the general said, stepping forward with a familiar, barely-contained fury Rex was intimately acquainted with from the battlefield, "_with evidence and a confession from the person responsible for the crimes Ahsoka has been accused of._"

"Like I said," Tup went on, but Fives whacked him again on the shoulder and Tup subsided with another shrug.

"_Barriss Offee, member of the Jedi Order—and traitor_." The venom in the general's voice sent a finger of unease down Rex's spine.

But even worse—the cold realization that the traitor _was _a Jedi.

_Ah, _shab_._

"_Barriss_?" In that moment, Rex watched all the defiance Ahsoka had held onto during the trial simply...bleed away. "_Is that true?"_

Something tight gripped his chest as the cam flipped between Ahsoka's heartbroken expression to the miserable face of the other Padawan. But when the cam focused, the Mirilian's eyes chilled to a disturbingly familiar fervor.

"_I did it."_

Rex's unease intensified.

"_Because I've come to realize what many people in the Republic have come to realize, that the Jedi are the ones responsible for this war."_ Offee's voice rose and fell with a passion that pushed Rex upright. "_That we've so lost our way that we have become villains in this conflict, that we are the ones that should be put on trial—all of us!_"

Rex heard Fives shift on his feet and mutter a steady stream of curses under his breath.

"_And my attack on the Temple was an attack on what the Jedi have become: an army fighting for the dark side, fallen from the light that we once held so dear!_"

All the karking hells...

"_This Republic is failing! It's only a matter of time._"

Silence held in the common-room in the seconds after; a collective, drawn-in breath, broken only when the Supreme Chancellor gestured for Offee to be taken away.

"Kriffing hell," someone said, an unnerving note of awe in their voice.

Fek. Fek-fek-fek.

Rex let his focus slide off the screen as he stepped forward; only vaguely saw the flashes of bright, sickly yellow from the Temple guards' saberpikes. He let his hands fall to his sides, one to grip the edge of his bucket hard enough to pop tendons, the other to brace against his utility belt.

Snippets of muttered questions, comments—things that did _not_ need to continue in his company's barracks—swirled around him.

"That's it—it's done."

He knew his voice would carry over all the others, noted that all snapped to attention at the hard edge he deliberately added. "We know this war is not for the weak. We know the Separatists will try anything and everything to cut off the Republic's head, to bring us all down—and it's our job to make sure we _keep standing strong_."

He paused, sweeping his gaze from one side of the room to the other, studying the nicks and scrapes and marks of fresh paint on well-shined armor, the hardened or smooth-skinned faces of an almost haphazard mix of veterans and shinies; the bright, clear shine of some eyes and the duller, shadowed regard from others. The same exact faces of too many that he'd already lost, and for all the ones still here, he would _not _stand to have them live in fear of traitorous leaders.

But _why_ did it have to be another Jedi?

"We've got a war to fight, and our commander is coming _home_." His hand tightened further on his bucket; the plastoid grated against bone. "General Skywalker and Commander Tano will expect us to be ready. Ringo Vinda is waiting for us to set it free."

He swept his gaze over the room one last time, then gave a sharp nod.

"Let's get to it."

He turned smoothly, unclipping his bucket and slipping it over his head as he made his way out of the room, even as the collective roar from his men hit his back. He had his commander to see.

Before the door slid shut behind him, he heard Tup's easy laugh. "See? Told you she'd be acquitted."


	3. Chapter 2

"I used to believe being a good soldier meant doing everything they told you—that's how they engineered us. But we're not droids. We're not programmed. You have to learn to make your own decisions."

-Captain Rex

* * *

"I did it."

For a single, suspended breath, Ahsoka thought Barriss would implicate someone else, too. _Anyone_ else—Ventress, Dooku, the Seps, Tarkin—Force forgive her, even the Chancellor himself. Just...someone.

But she didn't and Ahsoka wasn't sure what was worse.

Distantly, she heard the Supreme Chancellor's sonorous voice and a droning echo from the senators, then Padmé's high, clear acceptance of the dismissed charges. The repulsor stand connected with a soft hiss to the galley-bridge, and Commander Fox stepped close, all hulking red-and-white edges as he unlocked the Force-blocking binders from her wrists.

But instead of a familiar, steady rush—strong as a northern wind across Shili's plains—the Force flurried through her mind in hesitant drafts, stinging and spitting like a whirlwind caught between Mos Eisley's narrow alleys.

"Padawan Tano?" Fox asked, head tilted, expectant.

Ahsoka managed a jerky nod and followed him into the labyrinth of corridors beyond the tribunal chamber. No binders, but the pair of shocktroopers close at her back sent a chill down her lekku.

She missed the 501st.

As if conjured by thought, she sensed Rex—steady as a fanned ember—before Fox turned the corner, so close that the commander actually reared back on his heels.

"Sir." From beyond Commander Fox's bulk came the captain's distinctive rough timbre, same but different from all the others. "Permission to escort Padawan Tano to the speeder pad, _sir_."

Rex's stiff formality was odd and disjointed compared to his mind's steady glow; he _radiated_ warmth, and it felt so…_good_, like a balm to her aching head. It was enough that she could take a deep breath and steady the swirling eddies of the Force; just enough that she didn't feel quite so deafened and numb.

But there was something else there; she could see it in Fox's stiff displeasure and the tilt of his helmet. Even an AgriCorps dropout could catch the undercurrents between the capital's resident corps and the men who actively hit the front lines, but _this_...was personal.

Fox hesitated only long enough for his silence to be telling. "Denied." And he continued walking.

Rex's familiar profile, bucket clipped to his belt, appeared past the commander, and when he turned to meet her gaze, something inside her lurched at the abrupt wash of relief in his eyes.

With the tiniest uptick at the corner of his mouth, he stepped to her side.

Ahead of them, Commander Fox's back stiffened into a disapproving wall of plastoid, but he didn't turn or break stride. She glanced aside at Rex and attempted a smile. Weak, probably brittle, but something like a smile.

His chin dipped just a touch toward his pauldron in acknowledgement.

In that moment, she felt a rush of gratitude so strong she almost reached over to hug the captain. Two years of fighting, eating, living, _breathing_ beside each other, from one blood-soaked theater of war to the next, he'd always been the stalwart pillar of determination next to her Master's sheer, volcanic will. Rex wouldn't expect anything more from her right now than putting one numb foot in front of the other—and if she needed to curl up somewhere later and forget the galaxy, he wouldn't think any less of her. Rex, along with Anakin and Padmé, had trusted her when everything else had crumbled to ruins. She owed them her life.

And she had absolutely no way to repay them.

The perforated durasteel at her feet suddenly blurred and she blinked furiously at the heat and pressure pushing against the back of her eyes.

Force take it, she would _not_ cry. Not now. Not with clones at her back who were still radiating distrust—no, that was _distaste_—and Tarkin still hovering like a specter in her mind...

And Barriss.

The last time she'd ever shed tears was as a youngling, when she'd managed to fall off one of the stone guardians at the Temple's entrance. "_Your recovery wouldn't be such an interminable ordeal_," Master Plo had later remarked with a dry humor she still remembered ten years later, "_if you hadn't been standing at the top_." The healers could only credit her Force connection for not being, in Master Plo's words, "splattered spectacularly across the Temple's steps," rather than just the one shattered leg.

The Kel Dor had overlooked her tear-streaked face with his familiar calm. "_Your pride will always push you forward, little 'Soka. Learn to release it, or every fall will prove to be just as painful_." He'd then tapped her plasto-cast with one claw and left her to a lonely recovery.

Ironically, instead of really heeding his advice—she'd been six at the time and not inclined to listen to anyone—Ahsoka had only pushed herself to land _better_.

_Fat lot of good _that_ did me._

Eyes still fixed on the durasteel plates beneath her feet, she didn't notice Commander Fox stop until she almost walked into his armor. Ahsoka stumbled back a step, felt Rex's gloved hand against her elbow for a whisper of a moment, and forced herself to take a steadying breath.

_Just get through the rest of the day. Then cry or meditate or beat up a training droid. Something._

Commander Fox had paused at a set of opaque, smoky-gray transparisteel doors, head cocked in that ubiquitous clone way. The corridor they'd entered ran along GAR HQ's top tier, lavish compared to the rest of the complex; as Senate members and the Chancellor were often called upon to proceed over the most critical tribunals—which had stacked up quickly as the war dragged on—the Republic's esteemed leaders weren't expected to give up their luxuries so easily. No durasteel plating for pampered feet, although the sleek windows along one side only offered a view of the vast parade of barracks, each squat block as rigidly correct as a Muun's hololedger.

As abruptly as he'd stopped, Fox spun on his heel and gave her a painfully correct salute. "Commander Tano, you have been reinstated. Welcome back, sir."

_Anakin_. Only her Master would be able to push that past the Chancellor so fast. Probably without even a by-your-leave from the Council.

"Glad to have you back, sir," Rex said, with a rare smile that reached his eyes. "The 501st is ready and waiting."

Ahsoka stared at them both, not quite sure what to say. Rex's smile dimmed. She quickly swallowed and unstuck her tongue. "Thank you."

To Rex, she tried to convey more—but by the shadow that passed over his face, she probably just managed to look like a larty-blitzed nerf.

"Sir, General Skywalker will transport you to the Temple," Commander Fox said, inclining his head toward the opaque doors.

Ahsoka took another breath, nodded to both men, and forced herself forward through the doors and out onto the three-walled speeder platform—only to meet a face-full of Jedi robes.

"Ouch," she complained, although it was muffled against the solid form of her Master. He still reeked of the Undercity; that old, fetid, off-metallic stench that, unfortunately, she'd become far too acquainted with during the past few rotations.

"I cut it close," Anakin said, voice still rough with relief. He pulled away just enough that she could look up. "Like always."

Ahsoka managed another smile, but this one was weaker and suddenly watery. She couldn't quite meet his gaze; the intensity of his Force-signature was enough to deal with at the moment. "Thanks. I owe you."

"Big time." He laughed, but it was shaky; something about it made her heart ache even more. Maybe sensing her need for space, he squeezed her shoulders and stepped back.

"How...?" she began. Her tired mind didn't particularly _want_ to refit the events after the bombing, but she still _needed _to know.

"Ventress."

"So...she _was_ part of it."

Anakin grimaced and folded his arms across his chest. "To my surprise, no." He shook his head. "I...almost felt sorry for her."

"Then—"

"She said she was attacked, too, by someone who was probably a Jedi. Someone who stole her lightsabers."

The pieces from the factory finally clicked into place, but that clarity tasted bitter. "She told you about my comm."

"Which led to Barriss, yes."

Ahsoka closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ahsoka." His words were soft, but she could hear the underlay of so much more.

A bubble of misery rose up her throat and she had to swallow thickly. "I'm sorry, too."

"_You're_ sorry?"

His spike of incredulity felt like sandpaper. Ahsoka winced, but forced the words out anyway. "_I_ was being targeted—and I wanted to find out _why_—" Her chest tightened painfully and the words stuck in her throat, along with all the other little truths she really didn't want to face.

Anakin understood, regardless; the spitting fire from his Force-signature subsided, but her mind still felt raw from it. _Force_, she needed to meditate.

"And you wanted to do it on your own terms," he said.

Ahsoka nodded mutely, staring past him to the waiting speeder that idled at the edge of the platform. To her surprise, Padmé sat there, her headdress gleaming silvery-bright in the sunlight.

"Ahsoka, sometimes we all need a helping hand," he went on. "Your instincts were right."

She shook her head and finally met his intense gaze. "Not about Barriss."

He hesitated, but the soft blip of a comm interrupted whatever he might've said. With a sigh, he stepped back and gestured toward the speeder. "The Council is waiting."

Of course they were. "How kind of them."

"Ahsoka." Anakin's censure gave way to a wry half-smile as he turned and walked the platform's length. "You won't need to deal with them for a little while."

"Isn't that just delaying the inevitable?"

"Give 'em a chance, Snips." Anakin's smile turned smug, which deepened just a touch as he nodded politely to Padmé and settled into the driver's seat next to the senator. "It's not every day that you'll have the entire High Council apologizing to you."

And would their regret have been more sincere before or after the GAR put a blaster bolt through her brain?

Ahsoka clenched her teeth around the words as she clambered into the backseat. Anakin had saved her life; he didn't deserve her attitude, despite the fact that he apparently thought all was well and good, now that the trial was over and the charges dropped.

"Besides," he went on, "I wouldn't be surprised if they consider this one of your Trials." He glanced back at her and winked. "But even when you're a Knight, you'll always be my Padawan, Snips."

Ahsoka nearly rolled her eyes. "I don't care if they offer me the Supreme Chancellery. I'm not sure I want to hear what they have to say."

Anakin sighed as the speeder lifted away and gained altitude. "That isn't the Jedi way, Ahsoka. You know that."

_And what part of the Jedi way led someone like _Barriss _to a bombing, murder, and sabotage?_ Again, Ahsoka didn't say it, but she wanted to.

In the following silence, Padmé turned in her seat to face her. "As your interim sponsor during the trial, the Council invited me to stay with you while they continue the deliberations."

Ahsoka felt a surge of relief at Padmé's words. She wasn't sure how ready she was to face any other Jedi at this point. Anakin was enough; her brain still felt like it had been stomped across by the entire Coruscant Guard. But— "Deliberations? On what?"

"Barriss," Anakin replied, easing the speeder higher and faster along the minor skylane that ran from the military base to the Temple, whipping through lines of speeders with barely a nudge at the controls. "With a full confession, a trial isn't needed. But a sentencing is."

"And as she is still a member of your Order," Padmé continued, her delicate brows knit together in an unusual display of unease, "she will be sentenced by the High Council."

"Well. Glad to know they won't be skewering the real traitor on the military courts."

"Ahsoka." Anakin's voice held enough disapproval now that she subsided; her momentary irritation slipped into a sharp stab of guilt.

She was silent the rest of the ride, barely noticing Anakin's thoughtful frown after they parked within one of the lower Temple hangars beneath Processional Way.

It was odd to walk the Temple's lower levels, past the activity of the hangar and into the quiet weight of the Temple itself. She hadn't stepped foot in the lowest levels since her days as an Initiate, and for the first time, Ahsoka took note of the war's neglect on the Temple itself: a coating of fine dust on ancient art, the web-like cracks along the stone floors, arachnids threaded high above archways. As a youngling, some of her clan's chores had included cleaning those same arches and artwork, either by hand—as discipline—or by pushing around cleaning droids with the Force—which usually led to discipline, in her case.

But now, Initiates were being pushed through their first Trials and into the war as quickly as possible. The concept of "youngling" was distinctly…flexible. There simply weren't enough of them anymore.

Even the Temple was being ground down, literally and metaphorically.

"Just be patient, Ahsoka," her Master said as they passed beneath a broad colonnade, painted and etched with countless reliefs, all of it a relic of an Order not bowed by war.

She couldn't answer.

Anakin left them in a small, bright anteroom. Ahsoka pretended not to see his shared look with Padmé before he stepped back through the arched entrance.

But before he disappeared into the shadowed hall beyond, he rested one armored arm against the stone frame and waited for Ahsoka to meet his gaze. "Just…listen to what they have to say, okay?"

And then he was gone.

* * *

Fekking hells, it was really over.

Rex wasn't a man to rely on the nebulous and capricious ambiguity of faith, but after the last hour, he'd be glad to raise a glass or several to the Force, to Jango Fett's dubious memory, or—in Ahsoka's honor—even to Shili's hundred deities.

Rex caught a glimpse of General Skywalker before the transparisteel doors slid shut, saw him swoop down like an overgrown Jubba bird and wrap the little Togruta in a tight hug. Another smile tugged at the corners of his mouth; it was a rare enough feeling that his whole face felt stretched and tight…but it felt _good_.

Ahsoka was cleared and reinstated. They'd be off to Ringo Vinda within the next 24 hours and the war would carry on, one system, one victory at a time. The commander might need a while to recover from it all, but she was one of the most resilient beings he'd ever met. Everything really would be back to normal.

_Kriff it all, it's about damn time._

"Captain, your clearance at these levels is questionable."

Of course, there was still Fox to deal with.

Slowly, he turned to the clone commander, nodded briefly, and made to unclip his bucket. He couldn't resist putting a pointed weight behind his response, though. "Understood, sir."

Rex didn't think it possible, but Fox bristled even further. The commander stepped closer, T-visor flashing in the corridor's stark light. "She might've been cleared of charges, but five of my men are still dead, Captain. Don't think that I'll forget what she's done."

Rex stared at Fox, thrown for a moment. Then a pulse of anger shot through him. "The charges—all charges—were dropped, Commander. If you're blaming—"

"I know what I saw, same as you, Captain."

Rex narrowed his eyes and took his own step closer to the commander. Behind him, he heard one of the red-painted Guards cough nervously. _Not exactly model behavior, Captain._

Rex didn't care.

"I saw three troopers down, Commander," Rex countered. "Where were those other two?"

Fox pulled off his bucket, his face furious. "The comms relay, where else? Killed at their posts. They didn't even have the chance to turn around."

The comms relay? That wasn't mentioned during the trial.

Rex bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted the coppery tang of blood. Fox wasn't a fool; he'd become more of a blowhard in the years since their training under the ARC trooper, Alpha, but he made a good, hard-line commander.

Which meant he might've seen the evidence that Tarkin presented…or he might not have.

"You didn't watch the trial," Rex finally said.

Fox snorted in derision. "I have a base to run."

Rex stared at the other man's face; he didn't see any guile—just that all-too-familiar, helpless anger over lost men. But kriffing hell, he didn't have to act like a gundark had crawled up his _shebs_.

"Yeah, you do," Rex said after a moment. Against his better sense, he glanced down at his bucket and slid his gloved fingers over the black hatch marks scattered across its sides. "And I have a war to fight."

When he looked up, Fox had a vein pulsing dangerously along his forehead and his face was turning an interesting shade of maroon, close enough to match his armor's paintjob. "As do I, Captain."

Rex regarded him for another moment. "Commander Tano has put herself in the direct line of fire from the moment she was made an officer. She has saved more lives than I could ever count."

"Do I need to remind you, Captain, that you're the one who called the all-points bulletin?"

Rex's irritation spiked, although beneath his armor, his skin prickled with an icy heat. He would never forget the sound or sight of those cannons aimed at her tiny, green-lit form. "It. Wasn't. Her."

But Fox knew he'd hit a sore spot. Stepping even closer, the commander hissed, "You can't lie to me, Rex. You heard her, and you wondered if she _did_ do it."

The night she ran, when Skywalker had called to Ahsoka through the prison block, her voice had echoed back with a boiling determination that still rang in his ears. Her words—and the still-smoldering cuts across his brothers' bodies—had shaken him.

Just for a moment.

But that moment was enough—and Fox knew it. The commander's eyes flashed in triumph. "You keep saying you trust them," Fox said, voice low and vehement. "But I read your reports, and I was there for the _last_ hearing Torrent was involved in."

Rex felt his jaw clench, felt his hands tighten reflexively against his bucket's rim, and couldn't keep back what he knew he shouldn't say. "You have no idea what it's like out there, Fox. Reading a 'pad and running a prison center doesn't give you_ one—fekking—clue_—what it's like out on those lines." Rex closed the last distance between them, close enough that he could smell Fox's afternoon caf on his breath. "Next time you think you know who's turned traitor—"

"May I ask," interrupted a new, but coldly familiar, voice, "what could possibly motivate two of the Republic's finest officers to argue like common street vermin?"

With a sharp breath, Rex stiffened to attention. Kark it, of course _he_ would be close by.

Admiral Tarkin stepped close to—but not between—the two men.

Fox had also immediately straightened to attention, but he kept his stare directly on Rex. "Admiral, sir. A...minor disagreement, sir."

"Oh?" With a slight shift, the admiral turned to study Rex. "Regarding what, Commander?"

"The deaths of my men by the actions of Commander Tano, sir."

From the corner of his eye, Rex could see the calculating glitter in Tarkin's gaze. Silence held throughout the corridor, and by the faint rustle of fabric behind him, Rex realized they had an audience. _Shab_.

"An unfortunate loss, Commander; one I believe Captain Rex should continue to bear in mind. The true mastermind behind the Temple attack has been revealed—and I shall see that she be punished accordingly—but we should certainly learn a great deal from this...distasteful matter."

Rex unclenched his jaw just enough for a clipped, "Yes, sir."

Tarkin considered him for another moment, and his soft, "Dismissed, Captain," was more warning than order. The admiral turned away, one arm outstretched to whoever stood behind Rex. "My apologies, senators. Your speeders are waiting."

Rex slipped his bucket on and damned all protocol as he edged past three robed senators, their aides, and an entire red-painted squadron of the Coruscant Guard.

Of all the moments to leave an impression.

Fox's attitude shouldn't have goaded him—the commander wasn't faced with continuous troop losses like most other battalions were—but not once that night or while she was at large, on any of the documented footage, did she ever critically injury a trooper. He wouldn't have believed the reports of her and Ventress if he hadn't reviewed the HUD recordings himself; there hadn't been anything except bruises, dislocated shoulders and jaws, and some mangled weapons—nothing a slather of bacta and a visit to munitions couldn't cure.

Which meant...

In the privacy of a lift, Rex jerked his bucket off and scrubbed at his face with one hand, thick callouses scraping across his rough stubble. He probably looked like hell—although he'd felt like hell for the past 48 hours, until the moment Skywalker had appeared on the flatscreen at the barracks, proclaiming the real traitor.

The general had cut it too close.

Rex reached for his comm, hesitated, then dropped his hand. Fives may have contacts with an interesting level of slicing ability, but if Fives wanted to stay an ARC, he'd be debriefing with General Zey right now. Which meant a comm would be wasted.

But was a comm even..._safe_?

Rex stared down at his arm and the tech covering his vambrace; at his familiar bucket tucked into the crook of his elbow. It was as nicked and well-worn as the rest of his armor, well-shined and as optimal as it could be; the HUD as trustworthy as it ever had been_—_despite the occasional moment when he'd have liked to kick it into a pit on Mustafar, usually in the midst of one of Skywalker's "fun" missions.

Fives had mentioned a _colleague—_one who had seen more than just nothing from the missing footage—yet Rex hesitated to fully ingest that bit of intel. Anyone who could_—_and more importantly, _would—_slice into the GAR's surveillance system posed an inherent risk to Rex's men.

He _needed_ to trust the system for the best intel; the best possible tech; the best effort to keep his men alive in the heat of battle; the best chance for any of them to come out of this war on the other side.

The doors to the lift swept open and Rex hid his face behind his bucket again, once more just another armored clone wading through the harsh white light and electronic hum of the military's nerve center. He could only move with the ebb and tide of grey fatigues and the flashes of white-and-red armor, or past the occasional darker matte of special ops.

He needed to get out of there.

But first, he intended to call in a favor.

* * *

An hour and a half later, the Council still hadn't called for her.

For a time, Padmé sat beside Ahsoka on a broad, threadbare settee and recounted stories from her tenure as Naboo's queen; eventually, both were lulled by the Temple's stillness.

Back between the familiar stone walls, it was hard not to take comfort from the only home Ahsoka had ever really known. For fourteen years, she'd framed her world between the Temple halls and classrooms, chasing long-lined panes of light and shadow in gardens and through wide arcades; darting between classrooms and corridors as all the vague, blurred shapes became familiar and distinct against her growing montrals.

She never slowed down; she _couldn't_. Eilosé, one of her clan-mates, once complained that she never even stopped in her sleep—as if tossing around on her little mat had been Ahsoka's fault.

She just...always wanted to see and know _more_.

It drove her instructors mad. Not that they ever showed it—they _were_ Jedi after all—but their prickle of disappointment had followed her like a trail of bread-puff crumbs.

"I'm so sorry." Padmé's quiet voice broke the silence.

For an odd, disjointed moment, Ahsoka was caught between the past and the future and another threat of tears blurred her vision. She forced herself to focus on the petite senator, who had turned from a window to study her.

Some time ago, Padmé had moved across the room to stare out at the sleek spacescrapers and blockier subsidiaries of the Coruscant skyline. She'd also removed her headdress; the metal piece sat coiled on a spindly table close by, gleaming a burnished silver in the evening light.

Its pale shine reminded Ahsoka of the promise she'd made to the silver-eyed, former Sepratist assassin. "Padmé," she began, then hesitated.

The setting sun cast shadows across the senator's face and deepened the small furrow between her brows. In that tiny moment, Padmé looked far older than she was—or maybe the war was just aging everyone without pity. "Yes, Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka breathed out a quick rush of air. "So Ventress...didn't betray me. Or set me up." _This is going to be hard to push past anyone. Especially Padmé._ "And I promised her something."

Padmé's delicate eyebrows drew even more sharply together. "What exactly did you promise?"

"That I would speak on her behalf to the Senate. Regarding her war crimes."

Padmé took a moment to consider Ahsoka's words, her hands idly smoothing the heavy fabric of her court-robe's skirt. Finally, she crossed the room to sit again. "That...could prove fruitless. Apart from her recent activities, Admiral Tarkin was correct. She _is_ still a wanted Separatist terrorist, as well as a murderer." She hesitated, then added, "She's killed many Jedi, and orchestrated the deaths of hundreds—if not thousands—of civilians and soldiers."

Ahsoka's gaze drifted back to the headdress and its intricate, infinite spiral. "I'm...assuming you know she saved Master Kenobi's life."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Padmé's small smile. "I have heard something along those lines, yes."

"And that Master Kenobi offered to speak for her as well?"

Padmé sighed. "Under certain conditions, I believe."

That Ventress serve the Jedi as a spy.

Ahsoka had poured over Kenobi's report repeatedly; at the time, the thought of Asajj Ventress helping any Jedi had seemed…beyond bizarre. And as hard to swallow as Darth Maul rising up from the ashes.

_But now I understand why she turned Master Kenobi down._

Ahsoka shifted on the settee to face Padmé. "Dooku used her as a tool and threw her away. She doesn't want to be used by anyone else—not even the Jedi."

Padmé considered her for a long, quiet minute, her face inscrutable; when she finally spoke, her voice was almost pitying. "Ahsoka, regardless if she wants to be beholden to anyone, there are times when reparations are necessary. She cannot truly expect you to aid her in this matter."

"But she _chose_ to help the Republic. She saved Master Kenobi's life and if she hadn't told Anakin about my comm to...to Barriss. Aren't those reparations?"

Padmé held her gaze, then dipped her head in acquiescence. "I will see what I can do, Ahsoka."

Ahsoka winced. "Padmé, no—I didn't mean you," she quickly said. "You've done more than enough."

But a little smile quirked at the corners of the senator's mouth. "Trust me, I'd rather be here than making another round to appeal the Privacy Invasion Act. It's become almost embarrassingly pointless." She grimaced, then paused, her brown eyes suddenly thoughtful. "Although perhaps you'd like to take on some duties within the Senatorial District, after this is all over. If you...will have the time to spare."

Ahsoka blinked in surprise at her delicate phrasing. _She knows_. "I…"

"Our pardon," came a hesitant and apologetic voice from the anteroom's arched entrance.

Katooni, the Tholothian youngling Ahsoka had guided through her Gathering—and who had bloomed remarkably during the conflict on Florrum—stood in the doorway, along with a young, red-skinned Twi'lek.

"The Council requests your presence, Pa—Miss Tano," Katooni said, catching her slip with a respectful bow.

With a sigh, Ahsoka stood. "Here goes nothin'."

But before she could move away, Padmé grasped her hand, and when Ahsoka turned to her, the senator's gaze was sympathetic. "Remember, Ahsoka. To represent you during the trial, amnesty was necessary." She lowered her voice and briefly squeezed Ahsoka's fingers. "However you choose to move forward, Naboo—and my home—will always be welcome to you."

For the third time that day, Ahsoka's vision blurred with tears. "Thank you, Padmé."

She hoped the wealth of meaning behind those words was evident; she'd lost too much already...and within the next hour, Ahsoka knew she'd likely lose more.

Maybe Padmé was right—maybe reparations weren't enough. But what _would_ be?

Turning from the bright calm of the small room, she followed Katooni into the Temple's shadows, leaving the other youngling to guide Padmé back to the hangar and a waiting speeder.

Halfway to the Council's chamber, to her shock, Ahsoka recognized the steady swing of Padawan beads against Katooni's headdress.

The Tholothian glanced back at her, brow furrowed in concern, and Ahsoka realized she'd actually gasped out loud.

"Katooni, when did you become a Padawan?"

The girl blushed, brown skin burnishing a deep bronze as she reached back to finger the beads. "Two nights ago. Master Yoda believes I am ready."

She fell back to walk beside Ahsoka, a shy but proud smile lighting up her face. "I will join Knight S'cylani and Master Ki-Adi-Mundi in the Outer Rim Territories...so I...might eventually fight alongside you again."

At Ahsoka's silence, Katooni continued, "It isn't the usual way, as Master Yoda said, but he also said that…" Her brow crinkled as she attempted to quote—or at least paraphrase—the Grand Master, "...these grave times call for a way beyond that of old." Katooni's voice turned rueful. "Which I guess means that the rest of my classes will be on the _Gallant_. But…I _do_ think I'm ready." Her smile was bright, hopeful, and something twisted sharply inside Ahsoka as she stared at the girl.

Part of her brain refused to fully comprehend Katooni's words. Some of her horror must have shown through, because Katooni's smile faltered and she dropped her gaze.

"Katooni," Ahsoka finally managed. "How old are you?"

The girl slid the Padawan beads between her slender fingers; they were silka, like Ahsoka's, in keeping with Tholothian traditions. "In five standard months, I'll be thirteen."

Ahsoka's throat tightened painfully. She couldn't think of an adequate response.

Silence followed them to the High Council Chamber's arched foyer; Katooni turned to leave with only a murmur and a bow.

But Ahsoka called after her. "Katooni."

The Padawan looked up, blue eyes dark with apprehension.

"May the Force be with you," Ahsoka heard herself saying.

The girl's shy smile reappeared. "And also with you, Ahsoka."


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Please note this chapter occurs concurrently with the last chapter. Best laid plans and all that...

* * *

"What you're suggesting would open up dangerous possibilities, and we must not train terrorists."

"Eh, rebels."

"How we conduct war is what distinguishes us from others."

—Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker

* * *

An hour and a half after Barris Offee had renounced the Jedi Order and well into the Padawan's subsequent sentencing, Obi-Wan realized—with a bleary sort of horror—that he would've far preferred the wastelands of some wretched Outer Rim battlefield to his appointed stand above the Chamber of Judgment.

"We lost this war long before it ever began, when we dared—as Jedi!—to create an army of slaves for our purposes!"

He'd thought—perhaps foolishly—the sentencing would've been a relatively simple matter: a repeat of the confession, then Barriss would be hovercarted off to prison, and afterwards, the Council—with all the wisdom granted by hindsight—could carry forward with making this entire Weequay-cantina-brawl fiasco into something justifiable, yes?

Apparently not.

"And you dared set this path for us all, under a banner of freedom and justice, and preach that we are mere defenders of peace; that we should stand in the way of the dark so the light might shine; that the Separatists leave nothing but chaos and terror and that _nothing_ should dare sunder this Republic—"

Barriss' skin had flushed a deep, mottled olive beneath the chamber's cold light, her face covered in a fine sheen of sweat and the muscles of her jaw ticking with every word she spat up at her former Masters. So far, she'd run the list of grievances all the way from underpaid civilians to overpaid corporations, starving refugees to conflicts of interest at the heart of the Senate's dealings—as if the High Council hadn't been aware of any of those things—and her diatribe still continued.

"You would spare us so-called soldiers the truth of the matter, that this war has only carried on at the behest of the vast seeds of corruption and borne on the shoulders of this Council—"

It didn't help Obi-Wan's frame of mind one bit that a throbbing ache had settled at the back of his skull, strong enough that he'd actually given in and tried to disperse it with a little pulse of the Force. In sublime irony, even the fabric of the universe was now being as obstinate as his fellow Council members. His headache pounded on.

"—but we are the ones who have left nothing but shadows in our wake; nothing but destruction and fear!"

The dias in front of him was lit up with clusters and lines of glowing Aurebesh, Windu's line left conspicuously blank. But rather than moving the whole affair forward without his vote—as they had over Obi-Wan's abstention, regarding Ahsoka—the Masters had let the proceedings roll forward, such as they were.

For a brief moment, Obi-Wan wondered if Windu had finally spent too much time in the Supreme Chancellor's presence. The Senate's most infamous characteristics—such as a complete lack of logic or the ability to expedite anything in a timely manner—certainly seemed to have rubbed off on him.

…Although the GAR's hyperspeed treatment of Ahsoka's case had certainly been an eye-smarting experience in cutting through the bureaucratic red flimsitape.

Anakin had barely made it to the tribunal chamber in time; the thought of just how quickly—and likely—the GAR would've dispensed with its newly-favored brand of justice left Obi-Wan's mouth dry and sent another stab of pain through his temples.

Obi-Wan's former Padawan now waited as a witness on the chamber floor, shifting from foot to foot—restless as a caged katarn—next to the holographic image of Master Unduli. While Luminara seemed to bear Barriss' fury with a quiet sort of grace, Anakin seethed, and at one point—when Barriss had decided to implicate the Order's collusion with slavers—his Force-signature spiked alarmingly. Admirably—and perhaps miraculously—Anakin had kept his silence.

"—you sweep the true effects of war behind you, caring nothing for the innocents that you so easily ignore—"

Now _that_ was enough.

"Funny you should mention the innocents," Obi-Wan interrupted, pitching his voice over hers as she tried to carry on, "considering an innocent was on trial for _your_ crimes. An innocent who, as it happens, has saved your very life. Multiple times, I believe."

Obi-Wan managed to become completely blind to Windu's glare from across the chamber; whatever the Korun Master had been trying to extract from Barriss' vitriol, it was far past time to be moving things along.

_And they call _me_ the patient one._

"To believe any one of us is innocent is to believe a lie—"

"Younglings, then? Or perhaps the crechélings? Shall the military courts put them on trial before or after they're able to lift a training saber?"

"They shouldn't have to lift one at all!" And, to Obi-Wan's surprise, her voice broke on that last, strident syllable.

That...was certainly an interesting response. His hand jumped automatically to his beard, thoughts darting back to her earlier arguments.

But Master Mundi was also done waiting and picked up where Obi-Wan left off. "You truly believe all these things, that you'd rather not have ever begun your training as a Jedi; that nothing good could ever come from this Order?"

Barriss' chest rose and fell and her eyes glittered under the chamber's light. "Nothing."

Below her, standing mute and as insubstantial as a shadow, flickered the blue image of Master Unduli; she seemed to bow beneath the weight of her Padawan's bitterness.

"And the Republic?" Mundi pressed.

"None of us should ever have led this so-called Republic into any war," Barriss spat. "And if that means none of us should ever have walked the halls of this Temple...then yes, we should all stand trial, rather than allow what...what has come to pass."

She faltered at the end, an abrupt enough change that an expectant silence held throughout the chamber. Obi-Wan couldn't resist glancing at his fellow Masters, although Windu remained unmoved at his stand; the chamber's shadows hid all but the gleam of his eyes. The Master was still playing at something, but what?

Plo Koon broke the stillness. "If it is your belief that the Jedi teachings have brought on this war, why was your choice a matter of terror over peace?"

Her expression had slipped into something akin to a grim desperation during the silence, but as Master Plo spoke, her face hardened. "It is no longer a matter of peace. My recourse could only be what this Order knows—an act of violence for a people of violence!"

"You act," Windu finally stated, "as a Sith."

Ah, the heart of it.

Barriss' eyes blazed, blue fire in the fierce light. "I act as I believe—that this Order could see—"

"Yet you would allow someone who trusted you, who claimed you as a friend, to be executed so you could carry on?" Obi-Wan couldn't quite keep the disgust out of his voice. "You speak as a martyr, but lack the conviction."

The flame seemed to sputter and a flood of emotions swept across her face, all too quick to define.

"Your beliefs—" Windu began, but she cut across him.

"It is not simply a matter of belief! All you must do is open your eyes, as I have, to see what this Order has become—"

"Lost." At the gravelly, exhausted voice of the Grand Master, all eyes turned; with a jolt of surprise, Obi-Wan realized he had not heard Yoda speak since before Ahsoka's military trial began. It was a bit like an electroshock to hear him now.

"Yes, lost," Barriss hissed, eyes narrowed and glistening. "Every one of you, guided only by a love of bloodshed—"

"Lost, we are? Or only you, our child, we have lost?" Yoda again broke in, his weary voice gentled by a familiar tone Obi-Wan recognized from years spent within the Temple's classrooms. Yoda's patience and particular joy in teaching younglings had been noted in historical texts for hundreds of years; ironic, perhaps, that the historians might've passed on, but the wizened Master had carried ever forward, gimer stick in-hand.

Yet this was no youngling in need of a lesson.

Irritation shot through Obi-Wan before he could temper and sweep the emotion away into the Force's ebbing tide. Ahsoka had more than earned that same patience when she'd stood before them and pleaded her innocence. Why had it been so lacking then?

"Clouded our minds, the dark side has," the Grand Master said. Obi-Wan nearly snorted. _Truer words..._ But Yoda went on, and Obi-Wan chastised himself for his own lack of faith. "Blood, so much blood, shed for you, or by you, for many. Upon our own hearts, these stains of blood, yes. And upon yours, as well; so deep, unseen, perhaps they are, hm? Too great to bear, this darkness, alone, yes?"

Barriss seemed to have finally run out of words. That same desperation Obi-Wan had glimpsed earlier slipped back onto her face, as visible as the sweat beaded across her brow. Silence again stretched between Padawan and Masters, although this time it was taut and thick as the massive durasteel riggings that anchored all of the great Star Destroyers in their Coruscanti berths.

Finally, she spoke, her words hitched and halting. "I _know_ the path of the Jedi no longer leads to peace, and we will all fall, if we continue."

Her voice thrummed with the finality of a Force-born truth, and Obi-Wan swallowed against the weight that settled low in his throat. He knew he wasn't the only one to feel it; a ripple of movement spread even to Windu, and from the corner of his eye, he noted the shift of shadows over the Master's face. At last, a final line of Aurebesh appeared on Obi-Wan's dais-screen.

"Barriss Offee," Windu said, his voice ringing with familiar strength through the Chamber, "you confess to have directly and indirectly taken the lives of civilians, clones, and your fellow Jedi in acts of sedition, terrorism, and murder. With your confession, you also admit to tampering and altering this Republic's military and civilian records and evidence, sabotaging the ongoing investigations and efforts by the Jedi Order and the Grand Army of the Republic.

"With these acts, you have broken all vows made as a member of this Order and as a guardian and defender of the Republic and its people. It is the Council's decision that you will be stripped of your status and rights as a Jedi, and will submit to a life of imprisonment for your crimes."

Below, Barriss' defiance only renewed. She drew herself up into a proud, arrogant image that reminded Obi-Wan forcibly of Ventress.

_Had_ Ventress been part of this whole, disgraceful mess? It was hard to believe; there hadn't been any murmur of credits changing hands after the attack—or so stated Republic Intelligence—but Ventress was exceedingly resourceful. If she wanted to work for bounties on either side of the war, she would manage quite capably—even if that meant slipping beneath her former Master's very nose.

But it seemed quite apparent that Dooku's fingers had slipped right into the Order's midst without their notice, with or without the aid of the fallen apprentice.

_That _thought wrapped around Obi-Wan's spine with all the biting, icy chill of Orto Plutonia.

"I stand accused." Barriss' voice rang through the chamber, as proud as Windu could ever be. "But you will know the truth of my words when this Republic falls, and in the centuries to come, you will stand accused for allowing this Order to fail!"

Silence held for a long moment, long after the pier lowered and the Temple guards led Barriss away, her dark-robed form almost unseen behind the yellow glow of their saberpikes.

"Long," Yoda finally said, "the fall has been, Master Unduli, for your Padawan." The little green Grand Master leaned forward, the tips of his ears drooping in a manner that Obi-Wan had come to recognize as a sign of fatigue. "No sign, given she had, for such thoughts, such anger?"

Luminara's head had remained bowed as the guards led Barriss away, but now she straightened to meet Yoda's gaze. "No, Master Yoda. I sensed nothing. Her training has proven so exemplary within the Healing arts that she has remained on Coruscant these past months, and in our conversations and meditations together, she gave no sign of any discontent." The Mirilian paused, folding her hands together before the thick fabric of her robes; the hologram sputtered as if it, too, was uncertain. "Barriss…has always been adept in clearing her mind of all emotion. Perhaps…she simply concealed, rather than released. I…I do not know."

Another beat of silence followed Luminara's words before Windu spoke. "Tell us, Skywalker, the manner in which you discovered this treachery."

Anakin stepped forward, almost eagerly, out of the half-shadows and into the cold light cast down on the Judgment pier's berth.

"As my Padawan had stated to this Council—" He paused only long enough to incline his head respectfully towards the Masters; in another situation, Obi-Wan might've rolled his eyes. For all that Anakin preferred the front lines, he'd certainly become a forceful orator—which wasn't altogether surprising, given his temperament and Senator Amidala's...influence. "—Ahsoka had formed a mutual understanding with Asajj Ventress. I sought her out and found her in the lower levels. We know that Ventress' motives have aligned with the Republic in recent months, and while her reasons for aiding Ahsoka are her own, she indicated that she was attacked—just as Ahsoka was."

Ah, so Ventress hadn't been a willing participant, or at least by appearances didn't seem to be. An interesting thought.

"Ventress also indicated that the attacker stole her lightsabers." Anakin spread his hands in a shrug that was anything but humble. "This, and the fact that Barriss was the only one Ahsoka contacted after her escape from the prison center, led me to the truth. Barriss made no effort to hide the fact that she had Ventress' lightsabers, and as the Temple guards witnessed, she was willing to attack or flee in order to escape prosecution."

_Laying it on a bit thick, Anakin._ No matter the outcome of the trial, he didn't need to—

"From the guards' reports," Master Windu said, a clear warning in his words, "I'm to understand that her confession was brought about by a rather extreme use of force."

—antagonize Windu.

Anakin visibly bristled. "I acted as I saw fit to expose the real traitor to the Order—and it worked." He stepped further into the chamber's fierce light, expression hardening into that familiar heat of righteous determination. "This entire incident should never have happened, and my Padawan should _never_ have been—"

"We cannot change the past, Skywalker." Windu's voice held a cutting finality to it, and to Obi-Wan's surprise, Anakin subsided. But not without a telling glare. "Yet we are still left with questions that I do not believe we will find adequate answers for."

Plo Koon took a step back from his dais. It was clear the Kel Dor had no intention of staying in the Chamber any longer than necessary. "Perhaps these questions may be addressed after we have righted a particular wrong."

Obi-Wan agreed wholeheartedly. "Yes. I believe another victim of this ordeal is waiting for our apologies."

Obi-Wan wasn't surprised at the grumble of assent from below, nor the piercing look from Windu. This time, he allowed himself a sigh.

Some things would never change.

* * *

A gray-fatigued clone lieutenant let out a low whistle as he approached Rex from a side corridor. "Nice kit. Your own mods?"

The corners of his mouth twitched and Rex angled the bucket in his hands to show the solder seaming. "Can't get any better. Good to see you, Bolo."

"Same, brother." The other clone clasped Rex's shoulder bell, his one remaining eye meeting Rex's gaze evenly before he turned and indicated the maze of corridors beyond them. A tinny whir of servos followed the lieutenant as he started forward, audible over the thud of their boots against durasteel. The Second Battle of Geonosis had left Bolo sans left eye and left leg, although from what Rex remembered of the damage, it was a miracle he still had both arms."Deeces, too?"

Rex snorted. "Naturally."

"Long way from our first set."

"I know what they say about the Phase II, but I swear they started diluting the mix. Cheap bastards."

Bolo jerked his chin toward the gleaming passageway ahead of them; it stretched on endlessly, it seemed, with side corridors and broader junctures placed at regular intervals. Some areas were marked with typical office doors, complete with opaque plesglass, all unmarked; others were fitted with thick durasteel ribbing, and Rex didn't bother trying to guess what could be behind the wide, solid doors set at the middle of those sections. There was a distinct metallic taint to the air that reminded him of the _Resolute_ back on its inaugural run, complete with newly welded durasteel and an oil coat so fresh it would've made a mynock purr.

"Credits for this place had to come from somewhere, eh? A little skim off the top of this budget, that budget—and look there, a shiny new GARCIC."

Which was likely true. The military's new criminal investigation center had only been one little tick off the GAR's long want list, but these days, what the GAR wanted, the GAR got—regardless of budgets. _Getting as greedy as a Geelan._

"Explains a lot," muttered Rex. "I don't want to know what else got repurposed to get a place this size."

They were passing along a sterile stretch that reminded Rex uncomfortably of Kamino's endless white walls, broken only by the universally GAR-gray durasteel plating above and below. In just getting down to the CIC's level, Rex's fight or flight instinct had started humming after the first few minutes of endless, mostly empty hallways. He hated not knowing the territory—even if that territory happened to be the bowels of the GAR's latest expanded facilities.

If Bolo hadn't been his only remaining vat brother—and if Rex hadn't specifically requested his presence—Rex would've retreated back beneath his bucket and pulled up a map.

"They like it big 'round here," Bolo agreed. "Just finished it. They haven't even slotted the 'lifts yet—which means a long walk for us." His lopsided grin flashed for a moment before he indicated a side corridor. Several neat Aurebesh placards were set high along the intersection. "That way to the new lab."

"Lab?"

"Crime lab."

Rex fought the urge to glance back like some nuna-headed tourist as they passed by the intersection. "They need a lab?"

"For forensics, research, and the like." Bolo's remaining eyebrow quirked up at Rex's pointed look. "Not quite the rock jumper I used to be, eh?"

"Just as long as you don't start preferring greenputt over limmie. Then I'd worry."

Bolo's bark of laughter echoed down the empty corridors. "I'd shame my own name, eh?"

Rex gave a noncommittal shrug, although he could feel a tug at the corner of his mouth. "Even out on the Rim, I hear funny things about you Corrie-based troopers."

"Let me guess. Sweetcrust nerf steak, medium rare, with ahh—glockaw sauce and muja fruit?"

Rex chuckled. "Thire will never live that down."

Bolo snorted another laugh and shook his head.

They walked on in companionable quiet for a moment before Rex voiced the thought prodding insistently at the back of his mind. "Why an investigation center?" There was another beat of silence, and Rex noticed Bolo's assessing sidelong look. Rex rolled his eyes. "Alright, give."

"Word here is the war ain't goin' so well—"

Rex, to his own irritation, couldn't deny that particular fact. _Doing about as good as a Gungan on a nexu hunt_.

"—and they're pushin' for a more...cohesive effort."

Which apparently translated to a drastically expanded special ops sector.

But still… "There's a reason General Skywalker tells 'em every rotation to stuff their latest 'improved gear' back up their exhaust ports. What's this really gonna do for the war?"

His first comment earned a laugh as the lieutenant slid a card through an access-panel and led Rex into another series of corridors, these only a uniform gray. "At least it makes a place for half-canned wets like me to be dropped into. I'd rather be here than a white tube to nowhere back on Kamino."

There was an underlying edge of bitterness to Bolo's voice that Rex knew he couldn't acknowledge beyond a grunt of assent. No brother wanted either pity or sympathy for the scars they bore.

They walked in silence for a minute; part of Rex's mind ticked off the number of doorways, while another part mentally calculated how far this particular facility webbed out beneath the GAR's surface buildings. And another part wondered at the fact that Bolo hadn't answered his question.

"Is he as crazy as they say?" Bolo finally asked.

Rex glanced at him, brow furrowed. "What?"

"Skywalker."

Rex halted at another corridor juncture; when Bolo looked back and took note of his expression, the lieutenant held up his hands innocently. "Just what I hear 'round here, Rex. Don't scratch my paint."

"'_Crazy'_ got me and my men out of more sarlacc pits than I want to remember, even when all Nine Hells were raining down on us. He might not follow every reg, but he gets the job done. Better than any other I've ever served under."

"Fair enough."

"More than fair. He's a good man." Rex shook his head in disbelief. "Where you getting this stuff?"

"Lots of talk over the past few days," the lieutenant admitted with a flash of another grin, twisted by scar tissue, "especially over why his Padawan would turn—"

Rex drew in a hissing breath. "She _didn't_ turn—"

"Easy, Rex—I know." But the other clone took a step back, anyway. "I don't cart around a HUD anymore, but I can still read the consoles."

Rex shook his head as he started forward again, so quickly that the servos in Bolo's leg whined in protest when the clone lieutenant had to jog after him. Rex could feel his brother's gaze on him, could see his eyebrow ticked up in thought, but Bolo apparently decided to drop the subject.

Bolo stopped when they reached an expanse of a higher, broader hall, neatly lined with durasteel bay doors, each gleaming in their frames.

"You'll have to bunk a moment here, Rex." With a wink of his eye, Bolo stepped close to the nearest bay; a series of scans and a hiss of hydraulics later, the lieutenant had disappeared into its gaping maw and the bay door had closed again.

The thrum of machinery here had a weight and density to it that pressed on Rex's ears and set his instincts on edge. According to the chrono, over an hour and a half had passed since Ahsoka's charges were cleared, and while Rex was accustomed to the slow-grinding gears of the GAR's inner workings, his comm to Yularen had been met with a quick acceptance but an hour's worth of wait for clearance. Regardless, at least he could do this one, small act for his commander.

But the depths of the GAR's HQ unnerved him in a way that he still wasn't sure he wanted to acknowledge. He shifted from one foot to the other and suddenly wished he could be off Coruscant and back shipside, roaming familiar corridors filled with familiar armor. He'd even take some Rimmer planet with nothing more than dirt and rocks and plants that might bite when touched—but it would all still seem more normal than densely-packed expanse of the ecumenopolis itself.

It was odd to think of a brother like Bolo sitting, content, under the vast beast of GAR HQ—even odder to think of him as something like a clerk.

Not just odd. Bizarre.

As cadets, he'd had a companionable—but not particularly close—relationship with his vat brothers. It was one thing to grow up on Kamino within a single squad; quite another to be anything other than a training group throughout the endless, grueling days. Rex had always wanted to push forward, wanted to fight and lead and think, wanted to see how far he could climb up the grand hierarchy of the budding military.

That had changed from one breath to another beneath Skywalker. Even now, through each hellish battlefield, he didn't want to be anything but captain to Torrent and constant six to his commander and general.

But Bolo had always been happy to be a grunt, happy to be pointed in a direction and told to shoot—and if there hadn't been anything to shoot at, he'd be even happier spouting all things limmie.

Rex almost snorted at the memory. Bolo had been one of the first to discover the wonders of the beautiful game—probably one of the first clones to gain a _true_ name, thanks to his intensely vocal obsession—and the last time Rex had seen him, seamed in 212th orange on Geonosis, he'd been rattling off the entirety of the Galactic Cup's lineup and stats like he'd been flash-trained with it.

If Rex believed the chatter, Bolo had woken from his dip in bacta more upset over missing the Fwillsving-Kubindi cup match than losing his leg.

A hum, then a hiss, and the one-eyed clone appeared through the durasteel bay door, a slender metal box in his hands. Its dull surface reflected the stark white glowrod-light overhead.

"Per the admiral's call," he said, presenting the box to Rex. "Yularen already sent his codes for evidence discharge. Just need you to scan your chip here."

Rex didn't argue and was just grateful that Bolo happened to be the head evidence custodian, rather than some unknown Coruscant Guard. He bared his wrist and passed his implanted ID tag over the smooth black reader along the box's front. A small blip, another swipe of Bolo's access card, and the box hissed open to reveal two familiar, smudged, grime-and-carbon-encrusted objects.

His heart leapt and his stomach sank at the same time, tangling into something that lodged his throat as he reached in and withdrew Ahsoka's lightsabers. Seeing them within the sterility of the evidence container, as if they were some sort of discarded, forgotten relic, was as bizarre and..._wrong_ as a dirt-pounding trooper turned benign clerk.

But in his hands, the lightsabers were oddly heavy and seemed to pulse briefly with a life and warmth of their own.

Bolo gave him an assessing look as Rex clipped them to his belt. "I hear about you, y'know."

Rex lifted a brow.

"Captain of Torrent—pretty much impossible _not_ to hear about you."

Rex might've imagined it, but he thought he heard the faintest echo of envy. No, that was bitterness in Bolo's voice; not as much as earlier, when he'd mentioned his permanent leave from the front lines, but it was still there. "Bolo, if you really want to get back out there, just let m—"

Bolo immediately waved him off and motioned for the far corridor, as if to hurry Rex on his way and out of his assigned domain. "Don't say it. I'd be just another easy target out there. As long as I'm not gettin' a blue hypo in the arm from some long-neck, 'm good."

Rex studied the other clone and recognized the weight that seemed to settle hardest across the shoulders of the most severely wounded survivors. There was a flimsi texture to his unscarred skin, a paleness that Rex usually associated with non-clone bridge personnel who'd been away too long from the warmth of any sun.

"The offer stands, Bolo."

One side of the lieutenant's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Thanks, Rex. Watch yourself out there."

Rex saluted his brother, and if Bolo's salute was a tad lazy in return, Rex didn't mind. Bolo had paid his pounds of flesh to the war and to the rest of them.

But as Rex moved to turn away, all-too-ready to leave the base behind and return the lightsabers to their rightful owner, Bolo spoke again.

"Y'know, that Jedi who turned—she's the reason I still have my arm." Rex hesitated, watched carefully as Bolo clenched and unclenched his left hand, face drawn and pensive. "She was in that medbay after Geonosis, and they couldn't do anything about my leg or my eye—but she—she thought she could save my arm. And she did."

A stuttered wave of confusion and pain passed over the clone's broken face and Rex wondered—not for the first or second or third time—how any of them would survive this war. Not with their heads fully intact.

"Funny, ain't it?" Bolo murmured, in a voice that was equal parts haunted and befuddled.

No. It wasn't funny at all.


	5. Chapter 4

"They're asking you back, Ahsoka. _I'm _asking you back."

—Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker

* * *

Beneath the sweeping arches and clean stone of the High Council's chamber, the clarity of the moment hit with a brutal intensity.

Could she really do this?

"Miss Tano," Master Windu began, a pointed weight to his words, "I'm sure you will understand. We must ask certain questions of you."

Of course. They were Jedi—guardians, sentinels, investigators, negotiators. Questions _had _to be asked, truths discovered, the weak protected, ironies ignored. Funny that she'd spent her life training for what she thought the Jedi stood for, and it all came down to nothing more than an awkward silence and a question about her choice in friends.

Six of the Masters stood in a rough semicircle in front of her, their robes tinted gold by the light of the sun. Facing them again left an odd ache in her chest, like a durasteel band around her lungs, choking off any chance for the detachment she so desperately wanted in that moment.

Barriss had asked her outright about emotion—if it would ever be right or wrong to ignore something so intrinsic to both their species' natures. No matter how much Ahsoka wanted to lock it all away, that one odd question trickled through her mind and refused to leave.

"Had you been in communication with Padawan Offee prior to this incident?"

Could she _really_ do this?

Ahsoka closed her eyes and the Masters' faces disappeared into a wash of red-orange behind her eyelids. She could feel the warmth of the setting sun through the high, arching windows, but it didn't sink any further into her skin than a brush of paint over plesglass.

The Force, though, prickled along her senses. It _waited_ for something. A drawn breath; an expectant silence.

"We comm'd weekly."

For a time, anyways. In the months after Geonosis and the brain worms, she'd enjoyed those comms; Barriss had a dry humor that Ahsoka always liked to draw out. Their conversations were short—there was always something to call one of them away—but Ahsoka had relished the contact with another Padawan. Being Anakin's student was never easy.

"Weekly?" Master Plo Koon's voice had a pointed weight behind it and she opened her eyes to look up at the Kel Dor, the Master she'd always turned to as a youngling, even when he encouraged her to search for her own answers.

"Not lately," she amended. She'd been too busy in recent months and in the Outer Rim, comm lines to Coruscant were unreliable at best. Most communication had been limited to official channels.

She _did_ know, however, that Barriss had transferred back to the Temple to continue her studies in the Healing arts. Barriss had been excited—as excited as she ever _could_ be—about the opportunity. She'd also confided to Ahsoka that she far preferred a posting away from the front lines.

"_Do you ever consider what the end of the war will __be like?"_ Barriss had asked._ "The__ recovery efforts alone will be truly monumental._"

Ahsoka's mind had still been reeling from the decidedly atypical mission on Onderon and could only answer honestly. _"Is any war really over?"_

"Ahsoka." Anakin's voice pulled her back to the Council Chamber. "When _was_ your last comm?"

"Three months ago."

"And what was it in reference to?" Master Ki-Adi-Mundi asked.

"Her transfer back to the Temple," she answered, although Master Mundi's clear inflection only brought to mind Katooni's silka Padawan beads, swinging a steady tempo against the girl's headdress.

According to the last briefing she'd read, standing at Anakin's side in the War Council room, Master Mundi's legion was preparing to take on a Separatist blockade at Mygeeto. _"This is a cleverly held system,_" the Cerean Master had said, although a communique from Admiral Tarkin made mention of the weaknesses in the Separatist defenses and pressed for a quick victory. _"I doubt a long-standing hold_ _will prove so easy to come by."_

How could they think Katooni was ready for that? She'd only just made her lightsaber; a few months of lessons under old Tera Sinube wouldn't amount to much in the Outer Rim. The thought of the little Tholothian—soft-spoken and unsure, yet still determined to learn and to keep trying—out at the front of a battle sent a sick swoop through her stomach.

"Did she give you any reason to believe she was dissatisfied with the Order?"

_Would it have mattered?_

"No."

"Had Offee made mention of any acquaintances on Coruscant?"

Ahsoka furrowed her brow at the question. Then—_ah_. Some sort of outside influence. But she doubted Letta could've been anything other than a convenient pawn. Watching Steela at the head of her rebels, Ahsoka knew the kind of personality needed to rouse a people for any kind of cause. It took guts, brains, _and _charisma. "No."

"And you have no reason to believe she would have targeted you, otherwise?"

The question came from Master Windu; his voice was clipped and precise and the weight of it resonated through her montrals.

_Why Barris?_

Could it have been _anyone_ else?

"No."

That, itself, hit harder than any saber strike. It had been _easy_ to blame Ventress; she was never really a Jedi, despite some of the things Master Kenobi had mentioned of her.

For nearly a thousand years, the Temple's echoing halls had been filled with the sound of soft-soled footsteps and the brush of familiar brown robes. Tens of thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—had walked those corridors and left their imprint with the hum of training sabers and pulse of the Force, all of it signifying the movement of an Order she'd trusted wholly and unreservedly since her first warm impressions of safety and peace, held close in the arms of Master Plo.

Why did that all seem so trivial now, fitted against a reality where one of her closest friends wanted her dead?

The Masters stood in silence, as if waiting for her to expand on her answer—_any_ of her answers.

But there was nothing she _could_ say to them.

"Former Padawan Barriss Offee," Master Windu finally said, "has been sentenced to life in imprisonment for her actions against you, the Order, and the Republic. We know that she will not have any bearing on your actions, going forward."

Succinctly put, they weren't blaming Ahsoka. She felt her face tighten and she had to drop her gaze to the cut stone. Anakin, at least, seemed to realize the misstep.

"Ahsoka, I am so sorry. About everything."

_Me, too, Skyguy._

All her life, she'd followed her instincts and known they were right; from her studies and training beneath the instructors, to the plains of Shili and her solo hunt for the akul. And every time, she'd felt—and tempered—that surge of pride; in the classroom, the training halls and even while stringing the akul teeth together before the light of a campfire.

Then Ilum, and her lightsaber.

And then to Anakin's side—and into battle.

"You have our most humble apologies, little 'Soka."

_But could I ever really go back to any of that?_

"The Council was wrong to accuse you."

Yes, they were. And yes, she could.

Although even now the residue of their _intent_ hung in the air, heavy in her lungs. It was like the protesters and the remnant of their anger; it stained the Temple's steps like blood and she wondered if it would ever wash away.

"You have shown such great strength and resilience in your struggle to prove your innocence."

An odd shiver ran through her; a void that felt like the Force-block binders were still strapped across her wrists; an ache left by the fight in a war she no longer understood.

But had she ever?

"This is a true sign of a Jedi."

Something clenched inside Ahsoka's stomach, hard and acrid and unforgiving, and around her, the Force _breathed_.

"This was actually your great Trial. Now we see that."

What if Bariss was right?

"We understand that the Force works in mysterious ways, and because of this Trial, you have become a greater Jedi than you would have, otherwise."

She'd fought for years, led countless men to their deaths, faced pain and horror and terror, all to defend the Republic…

"Back into the Order, you may come."

But what if it wasn't that simple?

* * *

It was over with one simple, quiet statement.

"I'm sorry, Master, but I'm not coming back."

It wasn't any more than Obi-Wan had half-expected. But the reality—and the whip-like backlash of Anakin's mind, first as a stumbling, broken echo, then as a blinding flare of hurt and confusion—hit with all the crackling, numbing pain of an electrostaff blow.

Obi-Wan had known, somehow, even before Anakin turned and offered the silka beads to her; even as he felt the hope and pride threading through Anakin's mind like a dawning light across Umbara's darkness.

And with the same resolve she'd borne throughout it all, Obi-Wan watched Ahsoka turn and leave the Order.

A gravity well of focused pain hunched Obi-Wan forward instinctively; Anakin—not but two steps away from him—narrowed to a dark pinprick in the Force, as if the beast of the young man's strength was felled for an infinite breath, too staggered to react.

And then he was gone, too.

The firm, clawed grip of Plo Koon's hand rested heavily on Obi-Wan's shoulder before he realized he'd moved to follow after.

"We cannot allow this." The words slipped out without conscious thought.

"She has chosen her path." Master Plo's voice was detached, as though the Kel Dor had mentally retreated; perhaps off into Wild Space, where foolish old Masters weren't destroying their own students with doubt and fear. A prickle of regret flowed from Plo Koon and it was an odd enough sensation that Obi-Wan turned to face the other Master.

Master Plo never loosened his tight control over his abilities or emotions; Obi-Wan had always rather admired him for that, especially in the years prior to Obi-Wan's Mastery, when a younger Anakin had left Obi-Wan wondering if the little smart-mouthed prodigy would be the demise of the Order, rather than its savior.

But that smooth well of mental peace now rippled with disquiet.

As Obi-Wan studied Plo's bowed head, Ki-Adi-Mundi spoke. "There is nothing more we can offer her."

A flash of anger shot through Obi-Wan, and even though he quelled it—he had not faced Grievous or Dooku or even _Maul_ to allow his own brethren to break his control—he allowed impatience to color his words. "I believe there is quite enough that this Council can do for one who has been so wronged, and we would be remiss not to make every attempt in repairing a trust we destroyed."

"Be at peace, Master Kenobi." Windu's tone was wooden, but with an edge Obi-Wan stiffened at.

"Peace? As _I_ recall, we are currently at war."

"_Master Kenobi_—"

The solid thunk of a gimer stick cut through Windu's words.

"Make undone, we cannot, this betrayal of trust." At Yoda's voice, Obi-Wan stiffened, a weight and weariness there that was somehow more unsettling than even Anakin's faltering Force-signature. "Escape, we cannot, this pain of war." The Grand Master turned to face Obi-Wan, his wrinkled face drawn and pinched in a way that sent a current through the Council, cold as Hoth's constant, cutting winds. "Offer peace, you would, Master Kenobi?"

Obi-Wan inclined his head gratefully to the Grand Master. "Might I remind the Council that I also left the Order as a Padawan." He couldn't bring himself to meet Windu's piercing gaze; his defiance of Qui-Gon Jinn and of the Council had been a memorable experience, to say the least, but as a very young—and very insistent—student, he'd been determined to aid in Melida/Daan's ongoing civil war. He didn't regret his decision, although regaining Master Jinn's trust had proven the most difficult trial of his younger self.

Which had been overshadowed by the realities of _this_ war, faced as a man.

"And I returned to the Order with this Council's blessing," Obi-Wan went on. "Might I recommend a similar patience now?"

"A very different situation, Master Kenobi," Windu noted.

Obi-Wan had to force back a few choice words.

"Ahsoka is not one who would lightly bear the charity of another." Plo Koon, at least, seemed to understand where Obi-Wan was headed. Master Yoda, as well; his gaze was sharp and knowing.

"It is not simply a matter of whether she accepts an act of charity or not." Truly, could none of them see this?

"Master Kenobi," Yoda said simply.

Obi-Wan, chastened, tucked his hands into his robes and bowed to the diminutive Grand Master. "All I ask is time, patience, and the means for her to understand her own path."

Yoda considered Obi-Wan before inclining his head. "Agree, I do. As you see fit, I trust, arrange these matters."

Obi-Wan bowed again, gratitude pooling like a balm in his chest. Perhaps...

But Yoda wasn't finished, and as much as the Grand Master's words gave Obi-Wan a quiet sort of relief, they unnerved him with a stinging, inescapable implication.

"Failed we have, our lost students. Trust the Force we must, to guide their paths, as we have not. Lost to the dark side, another, we cannot allow."

* * *

It took Rex ten minutes to wade through the base's constant river of troops and vehicles before he managed to commandeer an idling one-seat speeder bike and slip away. Gliding through the checkpoints and massive perimeter wall with barely a nod to the red-painted troopers stationed there, he'd never been so glad to leave the base behind and flow into the chaos of the civilian side.

With a a quick tap of his fingers, he disabled the bike's autocontrol safeties and revved the 74-Z into a skylane. Coruscant's gleaming transparisteel may not have been the comforting familiarity of a Star Destroyer's corridors, but after threading his way through the GAR's central command again—and making a point of clipping Ahsoka's lightsabers beneath his _kama_ before passing beneath Tarkin's sharp-eyed gaze—he'd gladly take another round on Geonosis over dealing with any more brass.

Not surprisingly, his comm beeped not five minutes from the base. With a sigh, he blinked at the insistent light along the bottom of his HUD screen. "Rex here."

"_Captain Rex, what is your location?_"

Of all the people to comm him, he had truly not expected General Kenobi.

"En route to the Temple, sir."

"_Good. Ahsoka's leaving. You need to head her off before she's gone._"

_What?_

"Sir?"

"_Ahsoka has left the Order, and I need_—"

Rex didn't get any further, the words drowned out by a buzz in his head and the sudden blare of an emergency horn—right before he wrenched his bike up and around on instinct. He heard the scrape of a repulsor engine and saw the fleeting, wide-eyed panic of a Human woman before sliding between two air taxis and under a slow-trundling mercantile transport.

Fek. Rex readjusted his grip on the bike and shook his head. It would be a perfect irony to survive every battle thus far and end up smeared across some Coruscanti luxury speeder's hood.

"_Captain Rex?_"

"I'm here, sir." Barely. The commander—Ahsoka..._left_? "I—I don't understand, sir."

"_She refused the Council's offer, and now she's leaving to Force-knows-where. She's smart, so I expect her to head for the Senate District rather than forsaking all sense, but one never knows. Regardless, I need you to stop her. I'd prefer not to send out a squad, not after everything else. So please do make every effort to find her_."

The general's rapid-fire response was hard to follow, stuck as Rex's mind was on "_left the Order"_. "S-sir, I don't—"

She couldn't just _leave_...could she?

"_Try to hold her up. I'll be in touch after I've settled a few matters. How close are you to the Temple?_"

"Just turned on Processional Way, sir," he belatedly realized. Must've been when he slid under the transport.

"_Don't delay, Captain. I have a feeling we won't have this chance once she's off the Temple grounds._"

"Sir?"

But Kenobi had already cut the transmission.

"Fek." The speeder bike jumped forward eagerly as he pushed it harder. _Don't do this, little'un_.

At the boulevard's end, the Temple's spires rose to nudge against cloud-smeared skies. Pale stone was bathed a dusty red in the deepening light of evening, and shadows lengthened to blot out the eastern subsidiaries and complexes. But as much as he magnified his HUD, he didn't see any telltale movement at the Temple's base; no distinctive heat-signature in a familiar form.

Another blare of horns—he was pretty sure he saw an overweight Besalisk shaking three fists at him as he shot between two supply haulers—and he'd somehow reached the broad expanse of the Temple's lower main plaza.

Rex idled only long enough for another sweep of his HUD. He urged the speeder bike forward again, instincts firing at him to keep moving. At this point in the day, the Temple seemed deserted, civilian and military personnel gone for the evening and the Jedi cloistered away. Every other open plaza and courtyard he passed was empty and silent, devoid of even debris left by the almost constant waves of protesters. Perhaps they were off celebrating their bloody victory; not a single anti-war or anti-clone sign was in sight.

She ran the first time for good reason. But now…?

_Kriff it—not now_. He didn't want to think beyond the general's orders.

Just past the southwestern edge, he caught sight of two familiar montral tips in his magnified HUD. A moment later, they disappeared down to a lowered pedestrian walk at the far end of a broad court, chevrons glowing vividly for a brief moment before vanishing from view.

"Commander Tano!" he bellowed. The speeder bike squealed in protest at his sudden rev and even more sudden stop. Then he was at the pedwalk and launching himself off the bike, down a stone-and-metal slideramp, and through a green-leafed arbor. Beyond, the pedwalk branched off a low-walled courtyard in about six different directions; some to slideramps leading down to other levels, others off toward narrow side-street bridges and roads.

_Shab_.

He hesitated for only a nanosec before pelting down the center way, following its slow curve into what looked like a small residential block, almost quaint beneath the looming bulk of the Temple. He could smell the smoky-sweet scent of cooking meat; hear the quiet drone of normal sentients going about their lives behind the solid, safe doors of their homes.

And in the center of the sun-warmed pedwalk was Ahsoka.

Her head was down, arms wrapped tight around her sides, the tension along her bared back strong enough to crack duracrete, every line of her body radiating a defeat that sent a flash of anger through him, fierce enough that his hands fisted and he suddenly couldn't hear anything over the grinding of his teeth.

This wasn't the Jedi he'd followed for two years; the one who wouldn't back down from a fight—especially a personal one.

"Commander?"

She hesitated, shoulders hunching up and forward. What in all hells had happened up there that she would be reduced to _this_?

"Commander."

Biting back a growl of frustration when she still didn't turn around, Rex closed the distance to her side. But even then, her head was bowed and he couldn't see her face.

"Not now, Rex," she said. Her voice was cracked and thick and it jarred fiercely with the universe he'd fixed in his mind.

He wrenched off his helmet and stepped closer. "So you'd just leave?"

It took her too long to answer. But finally— "I don't really have a choice."

"From what I heard, you _did_ have a choice, Commander."

Rex didn't think it possible, but her frame hunched even further forward, like a trooper bent with a punctured lung. The palms of his hands tingled; he wanted to reach out, but some instincts were too ingrained to overcome and he could only keep talking. "You were cleared. In my book, this is desertion."

_That_ lifted her head, but the sight of tear-tracks still wet on her cheeks hit him like a load of permacrete. He'd never seen her cry—and he'd seen her banged up and brought down plenty of times over the past two years.

She looked...

She looked like a child. Fek, she _was_ a child. Maybe not the youngling Skywalker had first trotted out, but she certainly didn't age on a clone's scale.

_No_, she was as much a child now as he was; raised to fight and lead and keep the men around them alive, or bear that burden the way he and General Skywalker had to: Alone.

"Don't do this, Commander."

She only shook her head and ducked away from him. But reflex shot his hand out to catch her elbow and she stilled. "Rex—"

He cut her off, knowing she'd only protest and not actually give any true answer—and he was _not_ going to listen to that. "I heard it all. I watched it all. You were cleared and reinstated. Your Council—" He hesitated. He'd seen himself that there could be a bad batch here and there even among his brothers, and there was nothing they could do but route them out and carry on. Slick had been proof enough of that. "Your Council was right to ask for your return. They need you—_we_ need you."

"No," she said, and now her voice shivered with something besides defeat. When she met his gaze, her focus was intense and somehow ancient. "You don't."

"_How_ can you say that?"

But her expression only hardened and she moved forward. Rex stayed at her side.

"Tell me, Commander."

"I'm not a commander anymore."

"You are Ahsoka Tano, Commander of the five-hundred-and-first and I have not watched your back for two years for you to just _walk away_."

To his growing irritation, that only earned a humorless sidelong glance. "You just told me that I was a deserter."

With a frustrated sigh he grasped her elbow, forcing her to stop. The sun on her face made her skin glow an even deeper orange, but there was a flatness to her complexion, an ashen hue to her markings and the hollows beneath her eyes.

"Commander. Why?"

It might've been the particular tone he used; it had worked in those early months on the _Resolute,_ after she'd been assigned to Skywalker and she'd somehow been more underfoot than anything else. Regardless, Ahsoka relented. "I'm supposed to become a Jedi Knight and trust the same Council who just fed me to the executioner. And don't tell me they wouldn't have, because I know better."

She winced and glanced down; Rex realized he hadn't released her arm. His grip had clenched tighter and tighter as she spoke and he quickly dropped his hand.

"And I'm supposed to keep going—to what?" she went on, gaze still fixed downward, so that he could only see the brilliant blue of her chevrons against the white curves of her montrals, luminous in the light. "Where do I go from there?"

She asked the question softly, almost hesitantly, and he realized she truly didn't know; that _not_ knowing frightened her—Ahsoka, the same Jedi who had faced down pirates and assassins and thousands of droids and even Grievous.

The eerie similarity of her question to his own doubts in the wake of Krell's carnage—when he'd stood as just another survivor in the hazy, eternal night of Umbara—made his skin crawl. As a soldier, he shouldn't have asked those questions; as a man, he had to.

But when she looked up at him again, her eyes seemed too big for her face and he wondered why he so desperately wanted her to stay.

"We need you out there, Commander," he finally said.

Again, that quiet, firm denial. "No, Rex. You don't."

The irony of the situation didn't escape him. He clenched his fists, suddenly irritated at her obstinacy. "You're not the only one who's had to deal with traitors. This war is getting to everyone—I understand that. But what's going to happen if we all decide to walk away? What then?"

She didn't answer and he stepped even closer. He could smell the sharp musk from her leather bracers and see the growth-ridges along her headdress' akul teeth. "Me and my men—we don't get a choice, do we?"

"Please, Rex—_please_ understand—I'm not doing this—"

"Then tell me why!"

"I'm trying to!" she snapped, and he was glad to hear a bit of her familiar fire again. She took a breath, briefly closed her eyes, then started talking. "You, maybe more than anyone else, should understand why I need to do this."

"No. No—I—" He paused and half-laughed, utterly nonplussed. "I really don't."

She crossed her arms tightly over her middle and again peered up at him with that odd, unsettling gaze. "No one really knows why Master Krell decided to defect."

"You once said the dark side was growing stronger, remember?"

He remembered the occasion vividly; after Umbara, in the half-light of an empty officer's mess, as he'd hunched over a mug of caf and tried to ward off the demanding pull of his over-exhausted body, she'd found him and sat beside him and simply talked. About the Jedi, the Force; about her younger self and the training she'd had as an Initiate. She'd almost casually stated it. "_And all__ Jedi can feel it. It's always there."_ She hadn't mentioned Krell by name or even by side reference; maybe she knew it was too soon. But she'd _known_ he needed to understand.

But how could she _not_ know this was the same? Twisted and callous—but stripped to the basics, it amounted to the same betrayal.

"Yes. But there wasn't anything to even _suggest_ that Krell would have defected. Even Count Dooku spoke out before leaving."

"Not true. I heard about Krell before Umbara. I heard what kind of troop losses he thought were acceptable."

"Do you remember when I took the younglings to Ilum?"

He stumbled over her words for a moment, baffled at her jump in logic. "Yes, but—"

"Before the war, Master Krell was the one who took the younglings. Master Yoda was there, too," she amended, "but Master Krell led them on their Gathering. He did that for decades, as far as I know. He was also an instructor at the Temple before the Wars."

The thought of that creature teaching or leading younglings anywhere was…terrifying.

Yet that also meant Krell had taken Ahsoka on her Gathering. "He was...your instructor."

She nodded mutely.

He stared at her for a long moment, his throat too tight to breathe through, the lightsabers still clipped beneath his _kama_ somehow heavier than before.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he unclipped both and held them out to her, suddenly desperate to get them back into her hands.

She flinched at the sight of them. "No, Rex."

"They're yours—they belong with you."

"I don't think the Council would agree."

At the moment, he really didn't give a flying ronto what the Council thought. "Commander—"

"I'm _not_ a commander anymore."

At least he could refute that. "Technically, you are." At her furrowed brow, he added, "They haven't processed your discharge, far as I know."

"That doesn't matter, Rex—"

"It does to me. And to all the men of the five-oh-first. And you know it."

She dropped her gaze, but not before he saw the telltale gleam of moisture in her eyes.

"It doesn't really matter what any of us think."

"Doesn't it? And if it doesn't, what's the point of anything you're saying?"

Silence held between them for a long moment, strained by the ineptitudes of a reality neither of them wanted to put words around.

When she spoke again, her voice was rough and dry, as if ground down by the Geonosian desert itself. But she didn't answer his question. "Barriss—she was better than that. She couldn't have done that—not—not the Barriss I knew."

Rex had to wet his lips before he could speak, and even then, he chose his words carefully; regardless of their own opinions, he had to say it. "What we believe we know isn't necessarily the truth."

Her eye-markings rose when she met his gaze again, and a small, sad smile crooked the corners of her mouth. "Exactly."

"But that doesn't mean you have to leave—"

"Yes, it _does_, Rex. Barriss was the last person who should ever have turned..." Her voice broke and she seemed to fold even further in on herself. She glanced at the lightsabers still in his hands and turned her head away with a wince. "And I don't understand how that happened. I don't understand anything anymore." She took a long, slow breath. "But I know that I can't be a Jedi right now. Not like this."

"But _why_?"

"Because I can't trust them—and if I can't trust them, then I can't trust myself, Rex."

"That's—that's ridi—"

"Don't you dare," she cut across him vehemently.

"Commander, with all due respect, you are everything I have ever been taught about the Jedi. How can you _not_ be one?" He glanced down at the lightsabers. In her deft grip, the sabers were solid and lethal; in his, they almost seemed delicate. "That's—that's like me not being a clone. We can't change what we are."

"That's what I'm trying to _say_, Rex," she said, exasperated. "You know you're not just a clone."

Ahsoka's voice was soft and he had to swallow before he could reply. "It comes down to that, same as you. And you and I know it."

He could tell by her stricken expression that she'd caught the implication, but couldn't refute it.

Ahsoka, out of any Jedi, should understand. She and Skywalker embodied everything he believed about the Jedi, everything the Kaminoans had so diligently pushed into his brain, although outside the white walls of Tipoca City and Kamino's carefully phrased doctrines, he'd quickly realized the Jedi were as diverse a breed as his brothers' individual personalities.

But Skywalker and Ahsoka—_they_ were the fearless, indomitable creatures he'd endlessly trained and simmed to serve beneath. He'd spent almost ten years secretly wondering if they could possibly exist as the Kaminoans described—and he knew he hadn't been the only one—but his first battle under Skywalker had ended with his blood singing for _more_ and he knew the Jedi could do anything.

Even now, when a more brutal reality had replaced those first fleeting impressions, he would always _feel_ the imprint of Skywalker and Ahsoka—the galaxy stretching and bending as his commander and general pushed and pulled it around them, close enough that Rex could touch but still somewhere beyond everything he could fully wrap his mind around.

He knew Ahsoka loved being a Jedi; that she wanted nothing more but to take her place in the Order. She'd jabbered on enough about it when Skywalker had assigned Rex the onerous task of mentor, right after Christophsis, before the general fully grasped the magnitude of his own responsibility.

The change from then—that smart-mouthed, brash, scrawny youngling—to now was remarkable in too many ways, and he had to clench his jaw against the sudden, utter emptiness that washed over him and left him cold.

She would really leave, would walk away from everything she'd known, from the war and _all _the men of the 501st.

The chill turned into an icy pain that spread from his chest into his gut, and when he spoke, he heard the barest crack in his voice and hated it.

"Don't do this, Ahsoka."

She hesitated before answering. When he focused on her face, he recognized that same pain, reflected in her familiar blue eyes.

"I _need_ to do this, Rex." Her voice was soft and as broken as Bolo's war-ravaged face, and Rex wondered if maybe—finally—he _did_ understand.

* * *

**A/N**: Krell's previous foray as an instructor was inspired off a lovely sketch by the talented **lledra**. I tweaked her headcanon, but all credit for even being nudged in that direction goes to her. And if you're rightfully disgusted by the thought of Krell being an instructor, always remember that monsters aren't necessarily monsters at first—just like our friend in a shiny black suit.


	6. Chapter 5

"The Jedi Order is your life. You can't just throw it away like this!"

—Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker

* * *

A blip from Rex's comm broke the silence.

With a curse at the timing, he thumbed the commlink, gloved fingers rubbing at the lightsaber hilts still in his hands. He kept his eyes locked on Ahsoka, half-suspecting she would simply vanish if he let himself get distracted.

She was still a Jedi, even if she denied it all the way to the Rishi Maze.

"Rex here."

"_Your location, Captain?_"

It was Kenobi.

"Southwest quadrant, two blocks from the Temple, sir."

One white eye-marking rose as he spoke.

"_If you have company, do invite them to the lower Temple Hangar B, Captain._"

Rex hesitated. "Yes, sir." With a click, Kenobi ended the transmission.

Ahsoka's gaze had turned remarkably stony. "No, Rex."

He studied her for a moment. Ahsoka was stubborn, but her particular brand of honor would always win out. Kenobi could force some sense back into her. "You owe me this."

Her face crumpled and he knew he'd hit low; it worked, but kark it if he didn't feel like Hutt-slime saying it.

Lightsabers once again clipped beneath his _kama_, he walked her to his abandoned speeder bike, away from the little neighborhood and its sounds of muffled voices and laughter and the salty smell of fried charbote root. But her silence was pointed and even during the ride down to the hangar, she managed a credible imitation of a duracrete statue riding pillion behind him.

"Ahsoka," Kenobi said by way of greeting, as Rex slid the speeder bike to a stop above the smooth stone floor. "I'm glad Captain Rex was able to find you."

Rex ignored the semi-dirty look she fired at him after she slipped off the bike.

And when she took up a defensive stance just out of arm's reach of Kenobi and Rex, arms folded across her chest and expression dark, Rex wanted to call her on it. She was rightfully irritable—she'd practically been sent to the slaughterhouse vibroblock just hours before—but she didn't need to revert to a petulant youngling, like the chit of a girl she'd been when she'd arrived at Christophsis, ready to tout her Padawan status.

Karking hells, how _was_ the general taking this? No way Skywalker would let her go without a fight.

Rex glanced around the deserted hangar, half-expecting the general to blow in with all the force of a Kaminoan hurricane. Force take it, they _needed _Ahsoka. Rex and his men would carry on—they always would—but losing her…

This hit hard.

A minute of silence stretched between the three of them, then another. There was no sign of Skywalker and something hollow dropped down inside Rex's chest.

"Ahsoka," Kenobi finally said, a quiet sort of regret in the man's voice, "there is nothing I could say that would even begin to mend what has been done. Nor, at this time, should I try. Words, as you well know, have the capability of being so very empty."

Ahsoka's glare darkened. Whatever had been said in the Council's chamber could _not_ have been good.

"And, I might add," the general went on, "I agree with your assessment—and I admire your decision."

That…sent prickle of alarm across Rex's skin. He stared openly at Kenobi, thrown. The general wasn't supposed to _encourage _her.

Kenobi's response seemed just as unexpected to Ahsoka. Her glare narrowed into something as sharp-eyed as a shriek-hawk.

"Quite so," the general reiterated with a hint of a smile, as if in answer to an unspoken remark, and Rex realized this was _not _going to be what he'd desperately hoped for. "I, too, left the Order as a Padawan."

_What_?

"_You_?" Ahsoka seemed to realize a moment too late that her voice had edged away from surprise and more into sardonic disbelief. She shook her head. "No offense meant, Master Kenobi, but you—"

"You're certainly making me feel my age." The general's beard twitched with what might've been a laugh. "I was once a Padawan myself, despite what Anakin might say."

"No, Master. I...only meant that it doesn't sound like you."

No, it didn't. Rex had to fight to keep from staring too blatantly. _Kenobi_ had walked away from the Order? But then...it wouldn't have been in the middle of a galaxy-wide war. The most pivotal war in the Republic's history.

"Ah, but we all change a great deal from our youth." He offered her another small smile. "And as Anakin was my Padawan, I'm certain you understand."

Her lips twitched.

Rex didn't see the humor; Ahsoka could never be anything _but _a Jedi. "General Kenobi," Rex started, not exactly sure what he could say, "with all due respect, Commander Tano is one of the best and most valuable members of the 501st." Kenobi turned as Rex spoke, and even though he could feel the man's piercing look all the way to the back of his skull, Rex carried on. "We need her out there, now more than ever."

He sensed more than saw Ahsoka withdrawing further from him, but kept his gaze locked with Kenobi's. The general, surprisingly, looked away first. "Yes, that is a fair assessment."

"Then—"

"Yet I needn't remind you that we've lost many good soldiers over the course of the war." The wry censure in Kenobi's voice cut Rex off. "There will always exist the possibility of losing even the best among us."

The wry censure in Kenobi's voice cut Rex off and he swallowed down his irritation.

"Why?" Ahsoka asked. She was studying the general, her brow furrowed, white markings drawn together.

"Why did I leave?" Kenobi gave her a small smile. "I was young and determined to aid in a cause, one that both the Council and the Senate thought the greater galaxy should have no part in."

"A civil war," Ahsoka assumed. At the general's nod, she went on. "But you came back."

Rex shifted on his feet, a critical eye on Kenobi's reaction. He had returned, had become a Master—a Council member. Surely that meant…

No matter the inner problems of the Jedi Order—and he'd heard enough from Skywalker to singe his ears, on and off over the last couple of years—Kenobi himself was the simple truth that reconciliation _could_ be had. Considering all Ahsoka had said before, back along the neighborhood pedwalk, maybe she really did just need some time.

_Hells, little'un. Of all the times to go for a walkaround… _But as he shifted his grip on his helmet, unclenching the fist he'd unconsciously made, he wondered if he'd still be around by the time she got back.

"Yes. That in itself was a long and difficult path." Kenobi's sigh was long and full of a wealth of things left unsaid. " I do not regret either my decision to leave or to return—naturally—but I also believe my decision was the best choice I could have made at that time and in that situation." He drew a slender datachip from his robes, held it up so that it caught the light in the hangar, then pointedly met Ahsoka's regard before offering it to her. "Which is only as much as any of us can do, at any point in our lives, hm?"

Ahsoka's gaze flicked between Kenobi and the chip. Rex felt his mouth go dry.

"Enough credits to get you by for at least a year. Perhaps longer, if you're extremely frugal."

"_No_. Master Kenobi, I can't—"

"Ah, but you can. And I ask that you do." The general took a step closer, chip held out to her. Ahsoka stood frozen, arms still locked in front of her. She stared up at the general like a particularly obstinate tooka cat, and with a sigh, Kenobi stepped back. "All I ask is that you consider the offer. This chip simply has the pertinent information; coded, of course, but you should certainly recognize it all through any credit bank."

But she was shaking her head. "Master Kenobi, I don't—"

"Want any ties to the Order? To your associates, your friends?"

There was a gentle edge to the general's voice that Rex automatically stiffened at; so, too, did Ahsoka. That stubborn streak was rearing up with a vengeance. "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer."

"But perhaps not the circumstances surrounding it?" Before she could respond, Kenobi went on. "Might I remind you that even rogue planets feel the pull of gravity. Whether that pull is a black hole or a viable system is an important distinction." He paused, then amended, "Give or take several billion years."

She quirked an eye marking at him and Rex could almost see the smart remark on her lips. But surprisingly, she only said, voice quietly rueful, "The same could be said of the Order, you know."

Kenobi inclined his head in acquiescence. "Naturally." And with another brief smile, he turned and gestured toward a hulking red-and-white _Eta_-class shuttle, nestled near the hangar's open bay. It was a sleek thing, winged like a bird and crowned with a fletch-like stabilizer. Along one side were etched the numerals 634.

"You can't be serious." Ahsoka's voice had a wry weight to it that actually warmed Rex's chest a bit. She was sounding more...normal. He couldn't share the sentiment.

"Quite serious, I'm afraid." Kenobi was obviously enjoying this. The shuttle was an ambassadorial type, swift and capable, and had its share of weaponry. Nothing major, but still, what did Kenobi expect her to be _doing_ out there? "Normally takes two pilots, but I'm sure you can handle it. You're familiar with this particular one, after all, and while it seems to be giving everyone else some problems, it certainly hasn't given _me_ any when I've required it. I'm sure you're up to the task."

"Why are you doing this?"

_Good question, _Rex thought, gritting his teeth. He should've requested a dismissal five minutes ago; he had no business here—not now, not if this was happily sanctioned by the Order. But a coil of something bitter curled in his esophagus and he had to swallow down the reality of Ahsoka's departure; it hit with all the force of a det and he could only stand rooted to his spot on the stone floor.

"Well, it _was _slated for decommission." The general peered up at the globular cockpit. "Really has been quite temperamental, but I'm serious when I say it hasn't seemed out of sorts when I've had to use it."

"Not just the ship, Master Kenobi—all of this. I'm not the only one to ever leave the Order."

"Ah, but I do think these circumstances are unique." Kenobi paused as if to reconsider, still half-facing the shuttle. "I'm almost certain of it, and I at least try to be a student of the Order's history."

"Master Kenobi," she tried again, exasperated, but the general turned toward her fully and raised one blond eyebrow. A clever clawmouse baiting a tooka kitten came to mind.

"I should think it obvious." After another pointed glare, Kenobi relented. "Ahsoka, we have wronged you terribly. That, in itself, should not be ignored for the sake of expediency and convenience."

"Master Kenobi, I can't accept all this."

The general studied her. "I know you want to throw off every connection to the Order, but I ask that you consider—truly consider—what that entails. And yes, while this is perhaps a small token in hopes of reconciliation," his gaze somehow became sharper and deeper as he spoke, "you are deserving of the freedom to understand your own course."

"I appreciate the offer, Master Kenobi. But—that's _not _the reason I'm leaving."

Rex's gaze swiveled to focus back on her, brow furrowed, mentally re-running her arguments from not even twenty minutes before.

Next to him, Kenobi's eyebrows disappeared into his heavy forelock. "Please, do correct my assumptions."

Her sigh was small but Rex heard the frustration there. And—oddly—in that moment, he finally understood. All the things she'd said before, while they'd stood in the middle of the little neighborhood, finally clicked into place—and his respect for his little commander—_ex_-commander—rose to the heights of Coruscant's spacescrapers.

But _fek_.

None of this was a selfish reaction; none of it was to simply "_find her own way_"; none of this was meant to hurt his men or General Skywalker or even the Order as a whole, and _every bit of it_ was simply to make sure she wouldn't become one of the monsters they'd both faced over the past year. She'd taken the Council's lack of faith at face value and would now move the galaxy to make sure she could trust herself. And if that meant walking away from everything she'd ever known, she had the guts and determination and damned honor to do it.

If Krell was only a hint of what a Jedi could fall to...

"I _need _to understand why this happened, Master Kenobi. That wasn't the Barriss I knew. She was a _healer_. A _good _healer. If this war is making someone like her into...into that, I can't—"

Her hands dropped to her sides and her fingers twitched, as if in need of a lightsaber in her grasp, and Rex could've sworn he felt the saber hilts under his _kama _pulse with a prickly heat.

Kenobi's voice was rough but gentle when he finally spoke again. "Then all the more reason for you to have the ability and opportunity to carry forward, Ahsoka."

Curiously, she turned her focus on Rex, and all over again, her bright eyes seemed too big for her face. She really would leave. The Order would simply wave goodbye as she trotted off into the sunset. She'd walk away from Skywalker and Kenobi, from the Temple, the GAR, her men.

From him.

"If you're going," he heard himself saying, despite the run of arguments that still had her shipside, still ahead of him, still leading a charge at Skywalker's side, "no trooper deploys unprepared into unfamiliar territory."

His implicit acceptance seemed to break whatever was left of her hesitation and a brief—but warm—smile flashed at him. "Thank you."

A universe of meaning echoed through those simple words and the palms of his hands tingled with a sudden, aching _need_—for contact, for _something_—before she left for good.

"Ahsoka," Kenobi said into the sudden stillness, "regardless of your choice—" The general hesitated when her attention wavered. And then he bowed, a graceful, somehow powerful act. "May the Force guide your way."

"Master Kenobi—" she began. He stilled, mild gaze expectant. "Take care of him." To Rex's surprise, he saw tears again, bright beneath the harsh light of the overhead glowrods. "Please. I'm not doing this to hurt—"

No, Skywalker could not be taking this well.

Kenobi, however, lifted a hand to forestall her words. "I will, Ahsoka. And I know. Our choices will always inherently affect those around us, but even then, their choice—even as a reaction—is a matter of their own consequence."

Rex followed that somewhat.

But as Kenobi turned for the hangar's far exit, Ahsoka spoke again. "Master Kenobi, which war?"

The general's eyebrows rose again, but there was a smile curving the corners of his mouth. "Melida/Daan." And then he was gone.

Melida/Daan. Rex only vaguely remembered the name; a blurb of galactic history that in tactical lessons, had only touched on the length of the conflict and the ineffectiveness of civilian efforts in terrorist-style, guerrilla tactics. No Jedi had been mentioned in the texts. But then, if Kenobi had voluntarily abandoned the Order to take part, there wouldn't have been. It was an odd twist of facts that somehow left Rex unsettled.

When Rex glanced at Ahsoka, her gaze was thoughtful.

"Ahsoka…" Her name on his tongue felt awkward and foreign. He didn't know why—he'd called her by name before—but his view of the galaxy had shifted, like a too-abrupt drop out of hyperspace, caught unaware by the tug of a gravity well.

Although when he unclipped the lightsabers and offered them to her once more, the quirk of her lips was as intimately familiar as his deeces.

"Rex." Her dry, self-deprecating humor was back, but he wouldn't let her wander off to Force-knows-where without a means to defend herself—and he'd be damned if he didn't know Kenobi thought the same. "They're really not mine to have."

"I think both Generals Skywalker and Kenobi would approve if these remained in your possession."

Again, a brief flicker of humor—although this time, in her eyes. "Thanks for the show of faith, despite my desertion."

Kriff it if _that _didn't hit him somewhere hard. "I will make no more assumptions regarding your personal decisions, Comm—Miss Tano."

But she was shaking her head and reaching out a hand to grasp his vambrace; a touch that only seemed to expand the hollow in his chest out to his extremities.

"I'm sorry, Rex. That was uncalled for."

He briefly closed his eyes. "This is—I...I don't—"

But whatever he'd tried to articulate died on his lips when he felt her arms wrap around him and the curve of her montrals tuck beneath his chin. And he was almost certain a vacuum dropped down on his lungs and the act of breathing became too hard to attempt.

"I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_..." she was saying, and he could feel those words all the way through the plastoid armor to the skin beneath his bodyglove. He swallowed thickly when she stepped away, and when he dropped his gaze, he was somehow surprised to see the lightsabers still in his hands.

"Ahsoka," he managed to say, and maybe something in his voice convinced her, because she slid them from his grasp. The galaxy clicked just a notch back into place when she slipped the sabers to her belt.

"Thank you. For everything." Her smile was watery but genuine.

"Ahsoka—if you ever need anything—don't think you are alone. Just—just ask." He unclipped his bucket and glanced down at the well-worn helmet in his hands, fingers sliding along its curves. "But don't disappear on me, kid."

He hated how broken his voice sounded, but he still felt like he couldn't breathe properly.

"Thanks, Rex," she said softly. "I won't."

Rex took a slow, steadying breath and snapped a salute that would've made the Chancellor proud. A little of the chill in his chest thawed when she saluted him in return, her smile brightening into something reminiscent of her younger, snippier self.

"Remember, Comm—Ahsoka," catching himself again as he dropped his hand, "if you need anything, just ask. I don't rank a general, but I know how to call in a favor."

She almost laughed at that, and when she answered, he could see the sincerity in her eyes. "I will."

Rex could only nod, feeling a bit like an escape pod cut adrift. He stared at her, suddenly unwilling to leave. The prospect of facing the war without her ahead of him, a whirling fire of orange and brilliant green next to the fury of brown and bright blue of General Skywalker, seemed intolerable.

"Actually..." She paused, eyes unfocused and expression suddenly pensive. "There is something."

"Anything." And he meant it.

Only to recognize too late a distinct gleam in her eyes.

"Has my military discharge been processed yet?"

* * *

"Where have you been hiding, Trench?" muttered Admiral Yularen.

A sip from his duraplast mug and a grimace later, Yularen realized he'd been staring at the holosimulator and mission stats for far too long. His third mug of caf had gone stone cold.

In the quiet stillness of the _Resolute_'s deserted bridge, the image of Ringo Vinda hovered at eye level in front of him, rotating in miniature grandeur sans the gas planet it encircled. Red and yellow dots glowed in irregular clusters along the disc-station's various industrial docks and orange piping marked the clearest access for any large task force.

Even so, the GAR could only guess at Trench's true base of operations along the station's broad circumference. The Harch had proven remarkably slippery, even to the ARCs, and Ringo Vinda was _huge._ Their sole Null assigned them had provided the only chance of locating Trench within that vast tangle of phantom electronic signals and energy pulses, but sorting through all the gathered data had left Yularen with a pounding headache. Not surprisingly, _this _Null had no problem leaving his reports and schematics a tech-heavy sprawl of information.

A Null was a Null, after all. Yularen was glad he rarely worked with them.

Yet something about the assignment still prickled with a vague and elusive..._wrongness_ and he didn't like it. Which was an irritating reaction. The Jedi were the ones who spent their time following enigmatic impulses; not a seasoned campaigner with a decorated admiralty.

"Ah, Skywalker," Yularen said as the general himself stepped onto the bridge. "Glad you could join me. The ARCs brought in quite a bit of data, but I'd rather have your eyes than RI's." Incompetent sons of droids, all of them. He shook his head as he swiped at the hologram in front of him; the image turned to highlight one docking ring. "We suspect Trench has barricaded himself within this particular processing sector. It is perhaps the most logical and well-suited area for a base of operations, yet will prove quite tricky for any direct engagement."

It was off several degrees from typical hyperspace entry coordinates; a perfect location to watch for incoming ships and allow for necessary defensive scrambling. It didn't help matters that this was _Trench_, miraculously reappeared from a dead-on torpedo hit. Yet Tarkin had insisted that this was a target of highest priority. If the station and the planet below had offered anything other than one of the Republic's most valuable sources of naturally stable, gaseous metallics, Yularen would have thought Tarkin had a few greenputt balls loose under his graying pate.

It might be a strategist's dream—Skywalker would likely love hunting down Trench—but it was _not_, however, going to be a clean victory. Brilliant, perhaps—the general always managed it—but in no way easy.

It took him a moment to realize Skywalker hadn't joined him at the holotable. In fact, the Jedi was simply standing in the middle of the bridge, looming like some krayt dragon over the forward navigation array.

"General Skywalker?" Still the man didn't answer. Yularen straightened. "General, is there a problem?"

When the Jedi turned to him, he very nearly flinched. The young man's haggard face was lined and drawn in a way that made him look decades older. He considered repeating his question, but cast aside the impulse immediately.

"I can only assume," Yularen said instead, turning back to the holosimulator, "that you are the bearer of bad news."

"Ahsoka left the Order."

Yularen took a moment to consider both the young man's announcement and his voice. "An unusual choice."

Skywalker didn't respond.

Silence stretched, overlaid only by the hum of electronics.

"Ringo Vinda will be a difficult objective," Yularen finally said, careful to keep his tone mild. "More so now."

From the corner of his eye, he could see the general's lanky form stiffen and—instantly—the air around the admiral tightened to something indefinable. Yularen felt—briefly—his lungs falter against the pressure and then—so quickly he wondered if he imagined it all—he could breathe again.

"Yes," Skywalker said simply.

The young man stepped to Yularen's side and the admiral forced himself to remain where he was, despite his body's instinct to back away.

"Shall we?" he heard himself say, and was grateful that his voice still worked as normal. "I believe there are many more matters to be attended to, now."

Skywalker took another long moment to reply, and when he spoke, anger wound the man's voice tight; a passion there that Yularen could vaguely recall from his own youth. It seemed decades ago, to think everything so important that the loss of one aspect of his life meant the loss of all. Ironic, perhaps, what age could do to one's sensibilities; Yularen had received the divorce datafiles from his wife only a month ago, and still only felt a dim disappointment.

Even Jedi couldn't avoid the stranglehold of youth's emotions, it seemed.

"Let's get this over with," the Jedi said. "This time I'm killing him myself."

Yularen made the careful choice not to be disturbed by that promise.


	7. Chapter 6

"In this war, a danger there is, of losing who we are."

—Grand Master Yoda

* * *

"You're sure about this?"

"Absolutely."

"Not quite what I had in mind," Rex muttered.

Ahsoka shot a bemused look over her shoulder. Rex had re-donned his helmet and the high white spotlights of the GAR's vast parade ground gleamed off the battered plastoid. He'd also taken her six—either by choice or just instinctively—and it was reassuring for him to have her back one last time.

"I promise, no running."

"You had a good reason for it, last time," he noted.

True. But she hated being back here. The scrubbed gouges from her destroyed speeder were dark against the duracrete and the air was still wet and heavy from the downpour two nights before, as if Coruscant's atmosphere simply refused to align to its prescribed ambience.

Overhead, pendants snapped and roiled in the wind and the First Battle Memorial loomed up next to her—and she had to push back the sudden, intense memory of the searing heat of plasma bolts and a hundred booted feet thundering at her back.

Even the Force seemed to rebel; it shuddered against her mind, too much like the air trembling beneath the weight of an oncoming storm.

She swallowed and walked faster.

Ahead, the GAR's Coruscant base loomed out of the night, an ever vigilant—and demanding—beast. At this hour, tanks and walkers were still marching with platoons along the light-washed grounds; the GAR, she supposed, didn't bother with a skeletal third watch. It was full-gear shows or nothing.

"Can't guarantee how long you'll have," Rex said as they approached the base's tunnel-like entrance. "By procedure, you should already be discharged."

"I don't think Anakin went to the Council before getting me reinstated. So, unless the Council delivers the news to the Chancellor or Anakin processes the discharge himself, I should have some time. Enough, anyway, to do what I have to do."

"Alright," he agreed, although reluctantly. "But let me secure the clearance."

Ahsoka shot another glance at him. The press of personnel and troopers was heavier as she entered the base proper, and she stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. "Rex, if you really object to this..."

"No, Comm—" He broke off, sighed, then admitted, "That's gonna take some getting used to."

_You and me, both_. "For now, I think you can forget that little detail."

She couldn't see his half-grin, but she knew it was there.

Squinting against the harsh white light, she forced herself to walk with the same confidence and authority she'd learned over the past two years, although with every red-painted Coruscant Guard she passed, she wondered if they'd been part of the complement that had chased her.

_Following orders._ _They were just following orders, Ahsoka._

She gave another passing squad a return nod when they stood to quick attention—then nearly winced when the Force tweaked in her mind like a bad comm receiver.

But when she glanced back, there was nothing but a wall of gray-fatigued personnel, scurrying around her and Rex.

Down in the prison center, Commander Fox stood watch in his relay station like a particularly territorial gundark.

Even after the requisite scan and removal of all items—she didn't have a comm anymore, but now that she had her lightsabers back, it was hard to give them up—Fox studied her for a long moment from behind his transparisteel cage, bucket cocked to one side and T-visor dark and quietly menacing. It was impossible to tell if he happened to be considering their request, confirming her clearance level, or simply checking the podrace rankings.

Ahsoka made the mistake of feeling him out with the Force and met a crackling wall of wards, unexpected enough that she flinched, and Rex, ever vigilant, shifted closer. Exactly _why_ they needed that level of protection was a question better left unasked.

"I understand why you'd want to question the prisoner, sir," Fox finally said, his voice tinny behind his helmet and through the voice-box for the enclosed relay, although there was a tinge of heat in his tone that rubbed uneasily against her montrals. "Cell block 7-C. Let's not have a repeat of last time."

He jerked his chin toward the distant energy fields and turned back to his surveillance monitors, letting two silent troopers escort them on.

At least she and Rex were in.

Past a familiar series of energy gates and into the depths of a high-security sector, the troopers took up flanking positions outside the cell block's buzzing energy field. Unlike Letta's cell, however, every small chamber within was open to view from the cell block itself, the openings only closed by activated fields.

Ahsoka was grateful for that; the more witnesses, the better, regardless of what might be said.

_I have to do this._

Five steps, and she faced the only occupied cell. A familiar dark-robed form sat there, meditating, straight-backed and calm, sublimely ignoring Ahsoka's arrival. The heavy, crackling scent of ionized air coated the back of Ahsoka's throat and she swallowed against it.

"Tell me why."

The bright blue of Barriss' eyes, tinted a deep gray in the cell's red-hued light, met her gaze; something flickered there at Ahsoka's words, but the rest of her remained impassive.

"This isn't you. You were better than this—you've always been better than this."

Still, the Mirilian was silent. Ahsoka briefly pressed with the Force, but was met with a stinging sort of pain, like fine sand spitting against her skin. More wards.

"After everything that we've been through, you owe me the truth." She heard the slightest shuffle of boot tread as Rex shifted behind her and inwardly pleaded for more time. Rex would receive notice via his HUD when the word went out about her discharge, but she just wanted a little time—just enough to get _some_thing from Barriss. Anything. "Just tell me—"

"There is nothing to tell."

The ice in Barriss' voice wrapped around Ahsoka's throat, but there was no way Ahsoka would back down now.

"Why did you frame me? Was that your intention all along?" Ahsoka persisted. "You knew we'd find out about the nanodroids eventually. You knew that would lead to Letta. Why did you tell her to contact me?"

A trickle of discomfort ran across Barriss' face; she shifted and the slight movement of her hands in her lap caught a flash of light on metal. It was only then that Ahsoka noticed the familiar strips encircling the other woman's wrists: Force-blocking binders.

"Barriss," Ahsoka tried again, although her name came out as more of a plea.

Barriss took a long, deep breath through her nose and met Ahsoka's gaze again. "Better that you would be imprisoned than what I have seen you will be."

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"That," she said, with the same calm conviction Ahsoka had been so accustomed to, "is your future. The Order will fall, and the Republic with it." Her gaze moved over Ahsoka's shoulder, to where Rex stood. A ripple of disgust swept over her face; it was so out of character that Ahsoka glanced back at the captain. His head was cocked slightly, more than likely in answer to a comm, and by the subtle tip of his chin, she could tell he met her gaze for a brief moment. He shifted on his feet just enough to tell her he didn't know what to think, either.

"We were friends, Barriss," she tried again, facing the cell once more. "I trusted you—I thought you trusted me! Why couldn't you have just _come_ to me?"

Barriss shook her head, her face once more smooth, blank. Serene.

It was maddening. "You didn't want me imprisoned, Barriss. You wanted me dead."

Again, there was that shift of her hands, only this time, Barriss' gaze dropped. _Maybe she isn't _that_ calm_, Ahsoka realized.

"There is nothing to tell, Ahsoka. What is done—is done. Where you stand, I shall not stand with you."

"Really? _Nothing_? You _killed_ people, Barriss! You tried to kill _me_! What's happened to you?"

But it all had the opposite effect. Barriss tamped down harder than an airlock, jaw working and eyes suddenly like tempered durasteel. "Their deaths are meaningless. And if your death could prevent what is to come, then I would have only done my duty to this Republic."

Barriss' words were clipped and sharp as crystal and hit with all the force of that fight in the Undercity—and Ahsoka realized it was no use.

Shaking her head, Ahsoka gestured to Rex. Any longer in that place, and she'd probably say or do something that she'd regret, although come to think of it, Fox deserved a few knocks to the helmet.

But before she'd taken two steps toward the cell block's exit, the red-painted commander appeared past the exit's energy field, tightly-held anger in every line of his armor. "Miss Tano, we've just received word of your resignation. Please follow me immediately out of military-restricted areas."

Ahsoka sighed. In all honesty, she'd expected it sooner.

But she _didn't_ expect Barriss' sharp echo. "Resignation?"

Ahsoka turned, skin prickling at the peculiar weight Barriss put behind the question.

Barriss had moved to stand at her cell's field, bound hands held close to her chest, her brow creased and staring at Ahsoka with all the intense curiosity of a scientist over a test subject.

And suddenly Ahsoka was angry—furious—at the double-speak and hidden meanings everyone had thrown at her that day, from the Council's rapid-fire accusations in the Chamber of Judgment to Tarkin along the prosecution bridge; the Chancellor pushing doubt of her loyalties on all the Senators to Windu's questions up in the Council Chamber.

But the heat of her anger simmered to something carbonite-hard in her chest as she studied Barriss' expression.

"Yeah," Ahsoka said. "I left."

Ahsoka turned her back on Barriss and stepped past the cell block's deactivated main energy field, felt the crackle of electricity as Fox reactivated the field. Barriss called after her, voice reverberating through the prison corridor.

"Get off Coruscant, Ahsoka. Get as far away as you can. There is no hope here!"

* * *

As Fives pulled a battered chair up to the current running sabacc game, Kix slapped down his freshly-turned set—to the groans of the four other clones slumped around the table. "Read 'em and eat 'em, womp rats."

"My karking luck," muttered a red-headed private with an unfortunate pair of cultivated sideburns. Fives recognized him as a pilot from the small, select Rill Corps—membership of which apparently gave him leave to look ridiculous.

Bits of flimsi were scattered across the table, but none comparable to the pile teetering at Kix's elbow. The medic's grin brought to mind a self-satisfied Kowakian monkey-lizard preening over his hoard. It didn't take much to guess what kind of stakes Kix was amassing; the medic looked like he'd raked in some serious shore leave creds. 79s would be more than glad to see him darken the club's landing pad.

_After_ Ringo Vinda.

General Zey hadn't been impressed with Fives' delay for his debrief, nor had he been particularly happy that Fives had engaged the enemy prior to the actual campaign. But in Fives' holobook, it had made perfect sense that the station's previous security measures would include some fail-safes that went boom, especially if messed with by something as dumb as a bunch of clankers.

All in all, it had been a satisfactory end to the assignment and he was eager to get back there and finish the job.

"Your luck can't hold." There was a distinct note of irritation in Jesse's voice as he swept up the deck and dealt another hand, nodding toward Fives and placing a single card, face down, in front of the ARC. Kix only smirked and fondly re-stacked his pile of winnings.

Two other Torrent clones—Rork, a dour-faced heavy gunner, and Tull, a soft-spoken but sharp-eyed sniper—rounded out the play. Tup, Fives knew, was holed up in the barracks, determined to finish a few modifications to his gear prior to shipping out.

Fives took a peek at the card and grimaced. An Idiot's face peered back at him.

"So what's the word?" the red-head—Foley—asked, leaning across the table towards Fives as Jesse dealt out the second round.

Fives mentally discarded his own hand—a Six of Staves and an Idiot wouldn't get him far, for the moment—and quirked an eyebrow back at the pilot, wondering if the hair dye had sunk a bit too far into the other clone's brain. "On the commander? Captain Rex went off to see her. As far as I know, we're in the clear and departure's at 0450 tomorrow."

Foley waved off his answer. "No—Vinda." The pilot's teeth flashed in a feral grin. "I hear that Seppie Trench is a scary piece of sh—"

"We playin' or not?" snapped Rork. Foley leaned back with a shrug.

"Bets?" Jesse asked, looking pointedly at Fives.

Fives mulled that over a moment; he didn't particularly want to offer up his leave-creds—those easily traceable, military-issued currency that, for some reason, the GAR thought to be a good idea, despite the uptick in cantina brawls—but he'd amassed his fair share in recent months.

Yet...

The corner of Fives' mouth twitched. "Some new mods," he offered.

Rork scoffed. "That ain't worth ten."

"Where'd you get 'em?" Jesse asked, clearly intrigued.

Fives hesitated for the effect, gloved fingers tapping the edges of his cards. "We had a Null with us at Vinda."

Kix's interest perked. "Wait, a Null? Mods on what?"

Fives patted his bucket, still clipped to his side, with affection.

Jesse let out a low whistle as he slid a bit of flimsi and a stylus at Fives. "Mods it is."

"Still don't think it's worth the bet," Rork put in sourly as Fives scrawled his signature numeral, although the others ignored the heavy gunner.

Fives gestured at Jesse; the shifts were made and the Six went back into the pile. The Idiot and a Three of Staves were now tucked between Fives' fingers. He cracked his neck before answering Foley. "Vinda—it ain't gonna be easy. Fekkin' big station." He grinned lazily. "If it didn't have so many clankers, sure would be a nice place for leave. One of the casinos likes their Zellies."

A few quick barks of laughter and Kix called for another deal. "That's one way to lose your cred-shares real quick," the medic noted, eyes intent on his cards.

"Yeah," Fives mused, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck, head tipped back as if in thought. "But it sure as hell would be worth it."

Jesse chuckled. "So that's what you really do on assignment. Fess up—was she pink, like usual?"

"Or red?" Kix added helpfully. "Or purple, or—"

"Or all three?" Jesse finished with a grin.

"Casinos?" The pilot again leaned forward over the table, practically flashing his cards. Fives wondered why Foley was even bothering with the game; going by the number of flimsi pieces with his nuna-scratch of a signature currently scooped close to Kix, he was better off taking his chances out on the front line.

"Like I said—big station. I guess even the Seppies wanted a vacation."

"Guess they finally figured out droids aren't as much fun as a few Zellies," Jesse remarked.

Another round of laughter and the serious business of sabacc began in earnest. Fives' luck, however, seemed stuck in the single digits. Not his night.

He'd definitely pry Tup away for a visit to 79s after the hand was called.

It was Tull who noticed the change, speaking up for the first time since Fives had sat down and as Jesse dealt another card, face down, to Fives' hand.

"What's up?" the sniper asked with a slight nod at the viewscreen set close to the common room's main exit. It wasn't the screen that all of Torrent had gathered around during the trial; that one was propped up in front of a pile of overturned chairs and currently blaring some random civvie talk show.

A shiny in a freshly painted kit was standing at the other, staring at it in consternation. From his seat, Fives could tell a base-wide message had flashed up across the screen, but couldn't make out the details from this distance.

"Oy!" Jesse suddenly barked. The shiny, predictably, jumped. "Share it, eh?"

The clone—with a perfectly regimented haircut and not a tattoo or scar in sight—backpedaled before jerking a thumb at the screen. "We've been pushed back another twenty-four hours."

"_What?_"

Fives was halfway across the room before the others had managed to clear the table. A quick once-over of the screen—which typically only listed legion notices—and he saw the updated time chart.

"Fives," called a familiar voice. When he turned, Tup was standing in the doorway to the barracks, bucket in hand and brow furrowed. There was something about his expression that made Fives unclip his own bucket and slip it on. A few blinks, and he saw.

_Ah, fek._

"What's up?" Kix asked, standing at Fives' elbow.

Fives held up a hand, blinking again to open a channel; he could tell the internal comm relays were lit up with chatter, but as much as he'd like to cut in and hear from some of the others, he knew Rex would have the most information.

The captain answered with a gruff, "_Not a good time, Fives._"

"So it's true?" Fives shot back.

The burst of crackled static, he knew, was the captain's aggravated sigh. "_Yes._"

"A _resignation, _though?"

"_Technically, the Jedi Order is a voluntary organization._"

Yeah, right. And he liked bantha patties for breakfast.

"That's the biggest pile of _osik _I've ev_—"_

"_Fives, if you have a point to this comm, make it._"

"Was it forced?"

Another quick burst of static. "_No. It's her choice._"

The muscles along Fives' jaw tightened to the point of pain; there was something else in Rex's voice that gave Fives pause. "Where are you?"

A lengthy hesitation, then: "_Leaving the prison center._"

The prison center?

Well, that explained the static. But hells—

"_Don't ask, Fives_," the captain said.

At the distinct clip to Rex's words, Fives subsided. Any other questions would need to wait. "Copy that, Captain."

Rex ended the transmission without another word and Fives jerked off the helmet, nerves crackling with a sudden surge of temper. The other troopers were staring at him with mixed expressions of interest and alarm.

"Commander Tano resigned from the Order. She's been discharged from the GAR."

Of all the ways he'd debated on how this entire ordeal would end, the commander leaving her Order _by choice_ hadn't been one of them.

"Can she do that?"

Fives swung around. The shiny was looking between them all with an intense sort of puzzlement. "Can Jedi just…do that?"

It took a beat before Kix answered for them. "Guess so." With a grimace that was more of a rictus, he sidestepped Rork and headed back for the sabacc game.

"I'm going to see her off." Fives said it before he fully realized his intention, but then he noticed Tup was at his side with that strange expression still on his face. His brother nodded once and made for the door.

Jesse hesitated before saying, "Me, too," although he went first to the table to stack up his sabacc set.

Kix looked ready to protest, but subsided and pocketed his winnings with a shake of his head.

"Fives." Tup had paused in the door and was looking expectantly back at him.

Fives hesitated, glancing back at the abandoned sabacc game. On a hunch, he stepped back to the table and flipped his cards over before Jesse could grab them. Next to the Idiot and the Three, a Two of Sabers rounded out his last hand.

A perfect Idiot's Array. He would've won the entire pot of the night.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the cards into the pile Jesse was sweeping up and headed for the door.

* * *

Away from the prison center, Ahsoka let Rex steer her through the base and back onto a speeder bike. She took pillion behind him and tucked her face against the rigid plastoid of his back plating, cool against her cheek.

Any sort of true answer would've been almost impossible to get, but facing Barriss—_that_ had been harder than Ahsoka had expected.

At least Fox didn't know enough of Order rules to refuse giving back her lightsabers.

The night air buffeted her face and lekku and she tried to ignore the passing whirlwind of color and sound as Rex eased the speeder through the base and into the gleaming Coruscanti traffic.

It wasn't until he slowed, then turned into a side alley that she blinked and pulled herself from her thoughts.

"What do you think?" she asked, sitting up and sliding back as he pulled off his helmet. He turned so that she could see his profile, distinct even in the alley's dim light.

He shook his head. "I don't understand you Jedi."

Ahsoka wanted to whack him on the shoulder bell, but restrained herself. "I'm not a Jedi anymore."

He shook his head and gestured for her to get off. She scrambled to the alley pavement, shiny and damp with condensation. A wet chill was settling over the night; not that the carefully controlled atmosphere ever got particularly cold, but there was far more air movement on the upper levels than in the oppressive Undercity. She rubbed at her upper arms through her bracers.

Rex also dismounted. "With all due respect, you'll always be a Jedi. Maybe not in title, but…" He hesitated, taking a moment to clip his helmet to his side. "Where it counts."

Ahsoka opened her mouth but couldn't think of a passable reply.

He studied her for another moment before asking, "What do _you_ think?"

"I don't know." She sighed, grateful to be back on the topic that hung like a tenacious wistie in her mind. "Not much more than I sort of expected. But I'd hoped for _something_ to go by. Considering everything she said in the tribunal chamber, I don't know how to take any of it."

"Ahsoka," he said slowly, "were you watching her?"

She furrowed her brow. "Yes, I was watching her—" But he was moving his hands in a familiar way; signals that she'd grown accustomed to out on the battlefield between the troopers. Her eyes widened at the implication."I…wasn't watching enough, apparently."

Rex glanced up and down the alley before tugging her closer with one hand beneath her elbow. "She signaled 'not safe' two times. You should've caught that."

Irritation flared in her chest at the censure in his voice. "I'm not exactly on my best game."

Which only earned her an even sterner look of disapproval.

"Ahsoka, if you're going to be out there on your own, you need to be at the top of your game _every moment_." His voice had a hard edge to it that he used on the shiniest of shinies.

Ahsoka had to bite back a quick retort, but her temper still won out. "The next time you have to go on the run to save your skin and end up betrayed by one of your best friends, you can lecture me all you want. But until then, would you _please_ not be like this?"

Rex dropped his gaze and she caught a spark from his mind, as if the ember of him sputtered, enough that she reached out to grip his vambrace.

"Okay, she signaled 'not safe'…" Ahsoka prompted.

"And you saw for yourself the evidence Tarkin presented." With a frustrated sigh, he dropped his hand away and scrubbed at his blond fuzz. "I don't suppose you saw any other troopers down that night."

"No," she mused, thinking back to the tangle of images from her run through the base. "Well, there were troopers down, about a squad of them outside my cell block." At his wide-eyed disbelief, she added, "But they were semi-conscious when I found them."

"And you _ran_?"

Ahsoka winced. "At first, I thought Anakin had managed it. But after I saw the—the other three troopers...well." The plastoid had still been smoldering from the lightsaber cuts. How had she not sensed Barriss? "From there it just went from bad...to really bad."

Rex nodded slowly; she could tell from his expression he was digesting the information and fitting it against the reports he had access to. "Fox mentioned there were two other troopers killed at the comms relay."

Ahsoka mulled over what she knew of the prison center, which wasn't much. "I don't even know where that is," she admitted.

"South side, Sector B-117." His reply was automatic.

Ahsoka peered up at his familiar face. "There's something else you're not telling me about all this."

Rex hesitated. "Fives had some intel. How good was Barriss at slicing?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Slicing? To my knowledge, not very. Why?"

"Someone sliced into the system and made sure the entire center was dark for about an hour that night."

"An hour?" She folded her arms in front of her, mind churning but unable to settle on anything in particular. The Force, behind it all, gusted in little, breathy waves. "Long time to set things up."

"Not the worst part. Our system has safeguards against this sort of thing, so whoever managed it had extremely high clearance not to set off every alarm we've got in there."

"Well that's…" she blew out a long breath, "…encouraging."

Rex eyed her. "Whatever it is you're thinking about getting your hands into, you need to consider how deep this is. I don't think Offee could have broken the system so effectively without assistance."

"No, it doesn't sound like it." She paused, again considering his words, and cocked a small smile at him. "How'd you guess?"

To her surprise, he smiled back, and there was a warmth in his gaze that somehow stemmed the chill of the night. "I know you." But then he added, wryly, "That's what worries me."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Just…think it out, kid, before jumping into something. Alright?"

She nodded, but her mind was already leaping ahead again. What had Barriss gotten into? And if there was someone else involved, why had she so readily taken all the blame?

"Ahsoka."

"Hm? Oh, yeah. I will."

Rex shook his head. He looked utterly exasperated.

"Look at it this way, Rexster." Something faltered in her. When was the last time she'd called him that? It seemed like years. A lot had changed in recent months. "Now you'll only have one crazy Jedi's back to watch."

Her attempt at humor didn't have the intended effect; he dropped his gaze and rubbed at his helmet in the way she recognized as a nervous twitch. Which was an intensely odd behavior to associate the captain with, but she knew him better than most.

"We need you out there, Ahsoka, and not just for your abilities as a Jedi. This all cuts deeper than I think you realize."

Ahsoka winced at the baldly stated words. He said them with a soft conviction, and she had to force herself not to throw her arms around him and apologize all over again. Considering his earlier reaction and his remarkable imitation of a GAR statue, he probably wouldn't appreciate a repeat.

"Can you understand why, though?" she asked, her voice just as soft.

"I do. And I respect your choice. I may not fully agree with it, but I respect it."

He met her gaze then, and the sweep of emotion there surprised her. He was the most stoic man she'd ever known—and there were plenty of Jedi who could vie for that title—but this...hurt.

In the odd silence between them, it took her a moment to look away—and only then fully noticed their surroundings. It wasn't just an alley; it was a dump of an alley.

"Did you intend to have this conversation here? Because it looks straight out of one of Jesse's holo-murder-mysteries."

That finally brought a snort of laughter out of him.

"Yes." He straightened and turned, gesturing for her to follow. "There's one last duty you'll need to dispense with."

"I'm afraid to ask," she muttered, staring at the grungy door he'd headed toward.

"Trust me one last time," he said, tone suddenly gruff. "You deserve a proper sendoff."

* * *

Obi-Wan found his former Padawan where he'd expected, although he had to steel himself before facing the inevitable.

"Give her time, Anakin," he said, after palming open the door to Ahsoka's Temple quarters and taking a moment to watch the young man's stilted, droid-like movements around the tiny room.

Only one of the small lamps was lit, and the window along the far side reflected a mirror-image of them both between each wide-slatted blind. Tiny winking lights gave a hint of the night and the city beyond, a swirl of color that seemed entirely incongruent against the reflected bare brown stone and the dark-robed young man collecting a short lifetime of gifts and oddities.

Anakin _couldn't_ take this without physical pain. It was part of his very nature.

It also didn't take much guesswork to know Anakin had received notice of Obi-Wan's unique requisition, as well as its intended use. An unusual blessing from the Council, but Ahsoka had earned every credit. Anakin's _reaction_ however, was an entirely different kettle of colo clawfish stew.

Obi-Wan winced at the spike of unveiled mental fury Anakin shot his way, but—surprisingly—the younger man held his tongue. Anakin _had_ matured a great deal over the last few years, even if he didn't exactly conform to the Council's expectations. It wasn't easy bearing the burden of the titled Chosen One.

But then, Obi-Wan wasn't entirely certain about the Council's expectations, either—not after the last year. Not after Maul.

"She will find her way," Obi-Wan finally said.

Ahsoka had left behind a surprisingly large collection of odds-and-ends; Anakin handled each with a quiet sort of grief, deeper than the anger, older and somehow stronger—the deceptive undercurrent beneath the plaintive ripples of a river.

There was a little smiling Pantoran goddess of polished blue stone; a rough-cut metallic medallion inscribed with what suspiciously looked like an old Wookiee charm; three bright river stones, rolled smooth; a tattered Togrutan scarf seared with small burns; all of them more than likely gifts and not merely trinkets, Obi-Wan realized.

For all that she'd been a dedicated Padawan, she'd forged close friendships and loyalties across the galaxy. It wasn't, perhaps, the impartiality that most Jedi strove for, but it had worked out all the better in the end, he realized. She would need those ties now, far more so than any detached neutrality at some future negotiation table.

Anakin remained silent until he'd placed the last keepsake—a carved bit of wroshyr-wood that looked suspiciously like a miniature trooper helmet—in the small box atop her low pallet. He pressed a keyed access and it closed with a soft hiss of hydraulics.

"You're making this entire thing about her."

Obi-Wan stared at him, nonplussed for a moment. "It _is_ about her, Anakin. It comes down to her choice, regardless of what any of us would prefer."

Anakin's jaw worked and Obi-Wan saw a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"Are you as blind as they are, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan suppressed a sigh.

"As blind as you, perhaps. There isn't any reason to—"

"She would never have had any reason to leave if the Council had just believed her—believed _me_!" Anakin shot back. He ran one hand through his hair and turned in place, staring around at the tiny room. "They threw her away, just because it was convenient!"

"Anakin—"

But now that he was speaking, Anakin couldn't—or wouldn't—stop. "Is this what we are, now? Is this the sort of thing we're supposed to be? Is _this_ why I became a Jedi—so I could accuse innocent people of murder, just because it was easier?"

Obi-Wan winced, but couldn't deny the truths behind Anakin's acidity. There were members of the Council who would want to sweep this away and move forward—as the Jedi way instructed—but surely there had to be a bitter lesson to ingest because of all this.

And as Master Yoda had stated, they couldn't afford to lose any more of their numbers to that demanding pull of the dark side, its grip stronger every day.

"You know the answer to that, Anakin," he answered, putting a gentle weight behind his words.

"Actually," Anakin held up his mech-hand, then clenched it into a tight fist, "no. I don't." He shook his head and turned to the window, his shadow falling against it and the lights of the city-planet suddenly brighter beyond the transparisteel.

"I believe you do." Obi-Wan stepped to his side and ignored the younger man's derisive snort. "What was it that you told me once? That she was well-suited to be your Padawan; probably better suited than you had been, as mine?"

Anakin only crossed his arms over his chest and stared out into the night.

"You need to trust Ahsoka and her instincts. You've trained her well."

If Anakin took the compliment, it was grudgingly; he didn't move a muscle, otherwise.

"I know you want to blame the Council. For good reason," Obi-Wan added, holding up his hand when Anakin half-turned toward him. "But I also want to remind you of the position we all are currently in. What is worse: fighting the enemy we know, or the one we do not know?"

Anakin's expression darkened further. "The Sith."

Obi-Wan was quiet a moment, then carefully noted, "I doubt it's escaped the Council's notice that two Jedi have fallen within a year's span. Yet both seemed focused on your particular sphere of influence."

Obi-Wan chastised himself, even as he said the words. The events on Mortis lingered still; the questions of a ghost, more so, so that a voice that rattled through his mind and memories even in the depths of meditation. _Have you done as I asked? Have you trained the boy?_

What training could prepare Anakin—prepare _anyone_—for an eventuality such as the Sith?

Anakin turned fully to glare at Obi-Wan, his gaze unnerving in its intensity. "Don't."

"It's something that must be considered—"

"Krell's body counts had stacked up before Umbara."

"Not enough for overt concern."

"No. They were just conveniently weighed against his victories."

_As were yours_, _Anakin_, Obi-Wan silently noted. _At least before you adjusted to the mantle of command._

Which was likely true for all Jedi, himself included. Even if Obi-Wan understood the necessity, leading his men to death—over and over—haunted him in ways he couldn't fully grasp.

"Yet his betrayal occurred while in command of your troops."

"I remember, Obi-Wan." Anakin's voice shook with an anger Obi-Wan knew he _should_ address, but wouldn't—at least, not now. There was another mental spike of fury, although this one had a coating of frustrated impotence.

Obi-Wan was silent a moment; they'd both lost men—too many men—to Krell. At Dogma's court-martial, Anakin had objected loudly to the trooper's sentence and had even managed to go on record that he only regretted not being the one to execute Krell himself.

Not exactly the most pleasant image for the holorecord.

"From the evidence surrounding Barriss, she explicitly singled out Ahsoka," Obi-Wan finally said.

"Barriss and Ahsoka were close friends."

"Yes," Obi-Wan replied mildly. "But Barriss shows clear signs of being influenced by some other source. You heard her, Anakin; that was quite a load of propaganda spouted back to us."

Anakin shook his head irritably, as if brushing off the thought like so many biteflies. "Put a voice-modifier on her and she'd sound just like Dooku."

"Exactly."

Anakin stared out at the city lights for another long moment. Then, to Obi-Wan's surprise, Anakin's lips twisted in a familiar smirk. "You just proved me right."

Obi-Wan furrowed his brow. "In what?"

"That this isn't just about her."

Obi-Wan reminded himself that rolling one's eyes set a poor example.

"No, it never was. But what I'm trying to encourage is caution."

Anakin shot him a sidelong glance. "By your reasoning, Maul went after you because of me."

Obi-Wan allowed a wry smile at that. "It may not be _all_ about you, Anakin."

That earned at least a half-smile in return.

Obi-Wan pressed forward on that small victory. "Regarding Ahsoka, I do hope you consider her personal decision without placing it squarely on the shoulders of others—yours included." He paused, noticing how quickly Anakin's expression darkened. "She is an intelligent young woman, and I doubt she'll stray far from the Jedi path."

"Why not?" Anakin snapped, his mood shifting as quickly as an adolescent Gamorrean. "There's nothing for her here."

"If you truly believe that, you aren't giving her—or even yourself—enough credit."

Anakin only sighed and turned from the window, stooping to lift the box from the pallet before taking the two necessary strides to the door. Waving it open, he paused only long enough to glance over his shoulder, and his next words were rueful and quietly sincere—but not bitter, as Obi-Wan had expected. "I don't know what to believe anymore."

And then he was gone and Obi-Wan was alone with his thoughts.

_You're not the only one, Anakin._

* * *

**A/N**: That last little gift, the carved trooper helmet, is a happy nod to a brilliant artist and storyteller. If you're not following _Star Wars: Destinies_ on tumblr, do so. It's amazing!


	8. Chapter 7

"So I says to her, 'Baby, you and me could really—'"

"You never even met a girl."

—Clone Cadets Cutup and Droidbait

* * *

Surely the steady thump of music gave it away.

"Rex—" Ahsoka managed as he led her down a short hallway to an interior door.

A roar of sound cut off any else she might've said and Rex didn't bother stifling a surge of amusement—and no small bit of pride—at the sight.

79s, that much-loved and bizarrely sanctioned clone club, was stuffed full of the 501st, signature blue and white crammed into every corner, barstool, and booth. They were even hanging off the balconies, every level, all the way to the fourth floor.

Beside him, Ahsoka flinched and grasped her montrals, eyes widening to an almost comical size.

But a _real_ smile was on her lips.

Rex had to give due credit to his men. They knew how to throw a party.

"Are you _serious_?" she mouthed up at him, even as she was tugged into a gaggle of pilots and disappeared from view. By the forest of vambraces and raised glasses, he knew he'd be able to watch her progress through the crowd just by the toasts alone—and made a mental note to key an order to all the men. They could drink. _She_ could not.

Fives appeared at his side an instant later, pealing out of the crowd with all the tenacity of an anooba. "Well played for ten minutes, eh?" he shouted over the din.

"We're the 501st. If we can't move out in one, it's back to basics 'til they're all crying like a batch of shinies."

Fives snorted a laugh. "Yeah, but we've even got maintenance here." He waved at the unarmored group wedged between a bank of tables, every one of them looking a bit dazed and bruised beneath the plastoid-covered mass of their brothers. "And you know those guys."

Rex shook his head and pushed forward through after Ahsoka. He trusted his men, but he still didn't want her out of sight just yet. He also didn't feel like discussing _any_ of the recent events with the ARC at his side. At least, not here.

Fives, however, seemed determined to stick by him like a solar-dried mynock. "You left a lot out, Rex."

"Not much to tell."

"So you just marched back to Fox for nerf cookies and giggles," Fives shot back, deadpan.

Rex came to a forced stop; a cluster of Roller Company had linked arms in front of him and started singing a Herglic shanty—or really, destroying a Herglic shanty. By the sound of it, they'd managed to average a drink per minute from the moment of Fives' call to arms. "Fives, this isn't the time or place."

He really shouldn't have been surprised when he somehow found himself out on the speeder pad. Fives came by the ARC designation honestly.

"Alright," Rex bit off, crossing his arms over his chestplate and lowering his voice. His ears were ringing already; his brothers knew one level of noise. Loud. "She turned down the Council's offer for Knighthood—"

"She was going to be _Knighted_? Fekking hells, why didn't she—"

"Fives." Rex glared until the ARC subsided. "I get the feeling she thinks something else is wrong." To put it lightly. Kriff it all, he'd give almost anything to erase the last three days from existence.

"Wrong with what?"

Rex shot him a pointed look. It wasn't like they hadn't discussed the issue—not even four hours ago—in the barracks' common-room. It was also _not_ something he planned on discussing in a place crawling with military and the chance surveillance droid.

"Alright. Good point," Fives conceded. The ARC wasn't daft, but he also wasn't going to be swayed. "Why the prison sector?"

"Why do you think?"

A slow, predatory smile cracked Fives' face as he put the pieces together. "Meeting with former friends. I should've known."

Rex shook his head. Yeah, _he_ should've known, too. But the idea of her digging into any of the Order's secret mess made his skin crawl; he didn't think it stopped at the Temple's doorstep, and while Offee might've been the traitor, Tarkin's evidence didn't stack up. Considering what he'd just witnessed down in that high security cell, this was…bad.

Very, very bad.

And part of his brain was still digesting just how _big _that new underground GAR facility was, like all those meters and meters of durasteel corridors and unlabeled rooms were an unspoken promise that this war would go on and on and on regardless if there were any Jedi left to fight it.

His blood ran cold at the thought.

"She doesn't need to be sticking her neck out anywhere, not after all this," Rex said, careful to keep his voice low. "I respect her decision, but I can't support it as some other mission to find out why one Jedi would betray another."

His words did not sit well with Fives. The ARC's brow furrowed, dark as a storm on Kamino. "You really think that, Rex? As much as you know her? As much as you know Skywalker?"

"Not if she's alone out there."

Fives stared at him in disbelief and Rex wondered why in all hells Fives and Kenobi thought she'd just carry on as some independent agent. Were they _that_ blind and deaf—especially if some other unknown wanted her out of the way?

"_Get off Coruscant_." Offee's words rang through his head and he had to fight back the urge to wade through the mass of armor bodies, find Ahsoka, and watch her six until the day his bones crumbled to dust and blew away.

Rex stepped close to Fives and lowered his voice to a bare hiss. "This is bigger than you're giving it credit for." He hesitated, glancing past Fives at the hazy Coruscant skyline, barred with lines of light and the sweeping arcs of skylanes. But the image of her in that warehouse—unconscious, dirty, bruised, and so tiny—was an imprint that wouldn't face. "No one will have her back out there, especially if she's digging in places that don't need to be messed with."

Fives snorted—which only irritated Rex further. "You know her better than that. And it's not like she hasn't been on her own most of the last five months, anyway."

"Not true. She's had backup on call for most every assignment."

"Not _every_." Fives shook his head, but that predatory gleam was back in his eyes. "She'd be fun to keep up with. Wonder if they'd let me have a special assignment."

_That_ thought didn't settle well, either. "Not likely," Rex ground out.

Fives' eyebrows rose and his grin reappeared. "Then I guess I have a goal after the war."

Rex snorted, although his fingers were digging into his vambraces hard enough to bend the edges. "You keep dreaming."

Fives tapped his fingers thoughtfully against his blue-lined bucket, clipped, as always, to his side. Like Rex, he wouldn't even go off to 79s without his full kit, minus blasters—although Rex could only assume the ARC would at least sneak a flash bang in, just for kicks. "Yeah. I'll do that," is all he finally said, voice uncharacteristically thoughtful. Then, with all his usual abruptness, he tipped a salute to Rex and winked. "Better make the most of my night."

And he disappeared back into the noise and jam of bodies.

Rex stared after him, thrown momentarily by the ARC's change of mood. But Fives always had been as mercurial as Kamino's southern subsidence, unorthodox yet annoyingly brilliant enough that Rex wondered why the hells he ever tried to have a conversation with the man.

But he knew why.

No matter how crazy his twists of logic, Fives always managed to dig up the best—although oddest—intel. He had kept Torrent out of some fine and bloody messes, and even if it was all simply Fives' duty as a soldier, Rex still owed him more than he could ever repay.

Umbara was only the start of it, really.

The acrid-sweet stench of tibanna tasted bitter in his mouth as he turned away from the Coruscant skyways and made his way back into the bar. He still needed to remind his men that Ahsoka was not to be offered a drink, not even if they wanted to toast every past victory from here to Jabba's Palace.

Although he might have a few, himself.

It'd been that kind of day.

* * *

"To Moorja!"

"Felucia!"

"_Kamino_!"

"Saleucami!"

"To Geonosis!" shouted...someone over the cacophony of music and too many voices. Ahsoka was having a hard time following who called what, squashed as she was between at least thirty sets of blue and white armor.

"First or Second?"

"Who gives a flying fek!" crowed another.

The crowd around her rumbled with appreciative laughter and a drink was plunked into her hand—only to be lifted away a moment later by Rex, who seemed to have picked up the uncanny knack of appearing at her side the moment one of the men "forgot" his orders.

"You know I'm a Naboo citizen now, right?" she yelled up at him over the noise of all the troopers. She wasn't sure if it was an overload of the men's high spirits in her mind or if the events of the last three days had finally worn her down to a semi-hysterical status, but she was feeling distinctly light-headed.

He stared down at her, brow furrowed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Padmé as queen at twelve. Legal definition of adulthood. They even changed the laws!" _The things learned while being entertained by Naboo's most-cherished former queen… _She shoved a finger at the drink in Rex's hand. "I'm legal to drink!"

Typical Rex, he scowled down at her like a particularly stern librarian. Jocasta Nu would dance with glee if she had an army of Rexes to breathe down Initiates' necks. "Not on Coruscant, you're not, kid. And not on my watch." And over her protests, he downed it all in two swallows.

Okay, not _quite_ like a librarian.

His men all bellowed again and before another drink could be shoved into her hands, Rex scooped a clone out of the crowd.

"KP duty until further notice, corporal." The hapless corporal—Geiger, from engineering, Ahsoka remembered—groaned. "Captain Brinson will be notified." And Rex smacked him on his back, hard enough that Geiger-from-engineering shot forward to land in the arms of his whooping brothers.

Apparently Rex was serious about the no-drinks thing.

She wrinkled her nose up at him. "You really are no fun."

When he met her gaze, there was enough heat there that she suddenly felt _really_ light-headed. What had crawled up _his_ armor? "Orders are orders. If you want to have a drink so bad, Naboo shouldn't be too hard to find with that ship of yours. I'll join you for a pint when the war's over."

"But all the interesting things are _here_."

"From what I hear, Theed is nice this time of year."

Ahsoka snorted a laugh. "You really expect me to go to _Naboo_?"

Rex shrugged. "Why not? You just said you're a citizen." He leaned closer. "How'd _that _happen, anyway?"

She grimaced at the memory. "Padmé. When the Order cast me out, the Shilian representative refused to recognize my citizenship. And since you have to apply and be processed to get Coruscanti citizen status, that left me...well."

Ahsoka watched as Rex's eyes narrowed, the ramifications clear in the hard lines of his face. The Council had dropped into her straight into legal limbo, essentially stripped of rights and on-par with a droid for all the likelihood of a fair tribunal, all too similar to Dogma's own.

This side of the trial, those ramifications sent icy prickles of 'what if' down her spine. Without Padme's efforts, she could only imagine what kind of representation would've been granted by the GAR—or if the right to trial would've stood at all. It was all too much of a play on legality, too much of a urnsor'is-spider web of half-truths.

If Anakin hadn't found Ventress...

Ahsoka's montrals ached and her eyes itched and she _knew_ that thought didn't need to be finished. It wasn't even the threat of execution. Death was always...present_, especially_ for a Jedi. The idea of sacrifice was as constant as the weight and pulse of her lightsabers. But the strum of Anakin's mind—heavy and pained and spiking between emotions with enough speed to give her whiplash—pushed like a pike against the base of her skull. Even now, wherever he'd gone off to—and she could tell he'd left the Temple—she still felt that simmering overlay, as if the Master-Padawan bond hadn't been broken, but flayed into something raw and wounded.

She'd made her decision—and really, it was the only one she could make.

But the consequences...

"Ahsoka?" She felt fingers at her elbow and Rex's head close to hers, so close that his stubble-covered chin brushed against her montrals, rough against the cartilage along the juncture of her lek. Bizarrely, that rush of sensation steadied her.

When she met his gaze again, his brown eyes were concerned and earnest enough that she could've curled up in them and stayed there. But she _had_ to do this.

Not that Rex needed to know _what_, at the moment. Force take it, she wasn't exactly sure, yet, herself.

"So Padmé convinced her queen to grant me political asylum," Ahsoka managed to finish, puling the threads of the conversation back together. And with an impish smile and a deft reach around the captain, she plucked a drink from Jesse's hand and—with a quick toast to Rex—downed it before he could grab it.

Or she tried to.

Something the consistency of hydraulic fluid burned its way down Ahsoka's throat, and she thought she heard a muttered, "That's what you get," over her hacking wheeze. How could Jesse _drink_ that?

When she managed to get upright, she doubled over again when Rex—ever helpful—slapped her back with more force than he really needed to.

"You okay, Comm—ah, Miss Tano?" Jesse asked. His familiar, tattooed face swam into view, biting back a laugh.

"It's Ahsoka," she choked out. "Why would you _drink_ that? Its worse than engine oil!"

"Because he stripped his tastebuds off, first leave after graduation." Fives had popped out of the crowd and looped an arm around Jesse's neck. Somehow, Ahsoka wasn't surprised to see a deep-pink Zeltron attached to Fives' other side, complete with purple hair and a spangled dress short enough to make leaning over a hazard. "Ten rounds of Toydarian whiskey with a Weequay. You can guess how that went."

"I held my own!" Jesse retorted.

"Almost all the way to the 'fresher."

Rex, though, was peering at Ahsoka with interest. "You've...tasted engine oil?"

"With Anakin as my Master? When I wasn't slicing through droids, I was putting them back together." She poked his chestplate. "And who was the one stuck fixing the _Twilight _whenever we crash-landed on some other mudball?"

Rex conceded with a thoughtful tip of his head.

"That is _not_," Jesse put in, with a one-track mind and eyes focused on his liberated drink, "engine oil." He made a grab for the mug from Rex's hand and stumbled headlong into Fives when he failed. From the distinct clip of his words, Ahsoka could only guess how many pints he'd already knocked down. "Kashyyyk ale. Summer of '82. I have excellent taste."

Rex took a careful sniff and shoved the tankard back into Jesse's hands. "Yeah, and I'm the admiral's uncle. That's Gungan mud-stout or I'm a day out of Kamino."

Over Fives' sharp laugh, Jesse looked forlornly into the depths of his drink. With a shrug, he drained the mug. "Good enough, anyway."

* * *

"So you're the Jedi?" a feminine voice asked from behind her. After being passed around the entirety of the legion, Ahsoka had finally found a low-backed pair of booths and table—miraculously vacant—and slumped down for a moment. She loved the 501st. But as one cheering, drunken mass, they were a bit much to handle.

It didn't help matters that her head and montrals felt like they'd just taken a few rounds with a grumpy bantha.

"_Ex_-Jedi," corrected another, a throaty contralto.

Ahsoka had noticed a wide variety of clientele filtering into the club as the largest press of troopers filtered out—to no one's shock, maintenance and bridge personnel were the first to go—and her men_—formerly _her men—were more than happy to accommodate the new arrivals. Most seemed to be both expected and welcomed with drinks raised high or arms wrapped around curvaceous waists.

It was a rare side to see of the 501st.

For example, she never would've guessed Coric was so...hands on. His lap had been full of a green-skinned Twi'lek for at least the past hour, and he'd barely come up for air.

She knew she shouldn't stare, but it was all strangely fascinating. That was _Coric _smushed beneath all that green.

"That's me," she replied, careful to keep her voice casual. She glanced over her shoulder at the two women draped against the booth's synth-leather backrest; one was Fives' pink Zeltron and the other pale-skinned, dark-haired, and vaguely Human—maybe some Zabraki in there, as she had a couple of stunted horns. With an almost choreographed grace, they slid around and into the booth, one on either side of Ahsoka.

_Well, great_. Ahsoka forced a smile that probably came out a grimace.

"The boys all say you're a war hero," the Human said, looking Ahsoka up and down with interest as she crossed her legs at the knee, blue dress pulling tight across her thighs.

"_Heroine_," corrected the Zeltron; she'd been the throaty contralto. With a stunning—and blindingly white—smile, she slid a wide-rimmed glass in front of Ahsoka. The drink was as deep a glowing pink as the Zeltron.

Ahsoka tried gamely to keep the smile. Social niceties were never her thing. She doubted they ever _would_ be; she preferred sincerity. "Only what was necessary."

"Oh?" Pinkie swirled her own drink—a sickly, radioactive green—and cocked one manicured eyebrow at Ahsoka. "I doubt that."

"The stories those boys share…" The other clinked her choice beverage—a sedate amber in a thick-bottomed tumbler—against the pink thing in front of Ahsoka.

"Are probably classified," Ahsoka heard herself reply.

The flash of appreciative humor from Pinkie's mind warmed her considerably in Ahsoka's opinion, although the Zeltron hid a smile behind a sip of her drink.

"Even better," the Human shot back, with a practiced, sly curve of her lips.

Ahsoka decided she could play, too. Sliding one finger around the rim of the pink thing, she remarked, "They probably leave out the best details."

"I doubt a little Jedi like you would know what to _do_ with details."

Ahsoka's temper frayed just a tad more. "Hot, sticky nights." _And so many bugs_. "All those blasters to polish." _Their favorite past-time._ "And they taught me everything I know about hand-to-hand."

Pinkie nearly choked on her drink. To her credit, even her cough was attractive. "I...will never look at the Jedi Temple in the same way." The bright spark of startled glee from the Zeltron was as pink as her skin.

The Human sniffed. "I heard you were just a kid when you went out there? Still are just a bit of a thing, aren't you?"

Ahsoka bristled, but Pinkie spoke first. "Oh, please, Vel. _You_ were fifteen."

There was a sudden surge of vitriol from the Human—who looked at least a hard-aged thirty—as her red-painted lips twisted in distaste at Pinkie. With a sweep of her hair, she slid out of the booth and threaded off through the crowd.

"Fifteen for what?" Ahsoka couldn't help but ask.

Pinkie gave a noncommittal tilt of her head, although she leaned back slightly to track the other woman through the crowd. In seconds, the Human had wrapped herself around a seemingly random shiny and dragged him away, to the shiny's utter befuddlement.

"Her name is Velma Turchik. Ex…hm, forced _attendere_. She's come a long way," the Zeltron said. "Don't mind her. She's just jealous. The boys all love you."

"I was their commander," Ahsoka noted, rolling her eyes. "Not competition."

Pinkie gave an elegant shrug of her bare shoulders. "She's not exactly civilian, either." At Ahsoka's furrowed brow, she added, "Military contractor. Fascinating woman, actually. You might want to keep an eye on her." Her smile turned wicked. "And she does love her clones."

Ahsoka winced and suddenly felt sorry for the shiny.

"Beité," Pinkie said.

It took Ahsoka a moment to catch that the Zeltron was introducing herself. "Ahsoka. Ahsoka Tano."

Beité's blinding smile reappeared. "Yes, I know. You were all over the news today. And yesterday."

Ahsoka nearly groaned. She'd forgotten that fact.

Beité winked. "Nothing like a bit of infamy to make the holojournalists froth."

"Bei!" shouted a familiar voice, and Ahsoka sensed more than saw Fives peeling out of the crowd to land at Ahsoka's side in an unceremonious heap, although he plucked the pink drink from its spot with a suspicious amount of grace and waved it beneath Ahsoka's nose. "You haven't even tried it."

"Er. What?" Ahsoka leaned away from the glowing thing and Fives, who looked sincerely morose—if she hadn't felt the buzz of humor from his mind and the wicked gleam in his eyes. "That's from _you_?"

Fives patted her on the montrals and Ahsoka fought back the urge to whack him on the head. "Have to take care of my favorite ex-commander."

"Non-alcoholic," the Zeltron made sure to note, with another wink at Ahsoka. "You're just a kid."

_Kid? Really?_ Ahsoka threw up her hands—and reached back to grab Rex's drink, since he'd decided to sneak up on her again. "You people realize I've fought General Grievous—_alone_. Twice_. _Right?"

"And damn near got yourself killed," Rex snapped, making a grab for the tankard.

She pushed it out of reach—only for Fives to snatch it up. The ARC, ever-quick on his feet, slipped out of the booth and around to the Zeltron's side. Beité humored him with a pat on the cheek as he passed the tankard back to Rex. "Our Ahsoka? No way. She'll outlast us all. Five kids and a pack of strills."

"_Five?"_

Even Beité seemed horrified. She pulled back to mock-glare at him. "You realize what a girl goes through for all that?"

Fives waggled his eyebrows. "Nope. But I can help out."

Beité smacked him on the chest.

Ahsoka would've kicked him in the shin if not for his Sith-cursed armor. "Just because I'm not a Jedi anymore doesn't mean I'm going off to play house," she grumbled, irritated at the lot of them. Really, was this whole concept _that_ to grasp?

Rex, unfazed, settled into Fives' vacated place. "Why shouldn't you? Like you said, Naboo—"

"I am _not_ going to Naboo."

Her glare, however, only made the corners of his mouth twitch. "There's that boy from Onderon," Rex kept on.

"Really not wanting to stick around the Senate District, either."

As for Lux...

At least he hadn't been called to jury over her, but after Steela's death, there was something odd and empty between them, and she couldn't wrap her mind around it. But then, the whole Onderon mission had left her feeling hollow—_cold _somehow—enough that she knew exactly why Master Yoda had sent her to Ilum.

"The District isn't _so_ bad, you know," Beité decided to point out.

Ahsoka stared at her.

Those manicured eyebrows rose. "Ah, yes. Your trial. That _would_ be awkward."

"If you're looking for _real_ men," Fives put in, with an almost feral grin, "try Mandalore. Heard it's...wild over there right now."

"_Fives,_" growled Rex, ever the killjoy, but Mandalore _was_ an option. An intriguing one. She hadn't heard any word from Korkie Kryze after the planet's spiral into Death Watch's grip, although from what she'd gathered from Master Kenobi's report, the young Human was now aligned with Bo-Katan's group—the Nite Owls, she recalled.

Not even an ex-Jedi would be welcome among that group.

Ahsoka peered up at Rex. "You really want me to live the boring life, don't you?"

"Boring?" asked a new voice. Coric, a slender bottle in-hand and the green Twi'lek draped along his arm, slid onto the unoccupied booth. "Why would _you_ settle for boring?"

Ahsoka waved a hand at the medic, glad for a voice of reason. "Exactly."

"You can find boring any day," the Twi'lek put in with a lilting purr, "but not among the Republic's finest." At Coric's self-satisfied smirk, Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Fives, _nerr'avrei_," the Twi'lek went on_, "_Lyl sends her love."

Fives winked at her. "Tullin, you are, as always, beautiful as the Dorumaan sea."

Ahsoka actually expected at least a flicker of outrage from Fives' Zeltron—but instead, there was only a distinct flare of amusement. When Beité caught her watching, the Zeltron flashed another smile and pulled Fives around for a very thorough kiss.

"Ugh," another arrival said—this time, Tup, pulling up a nearby chair and swinging it around to straddle. "Get a room, you two."

"What _are _you planning on doing?" Coric asked Ahsoka, ignoring the show going on next to her.

Although no one at the table really shifted their attention, she could feel them all lean toward her, mentally, with an intensity that was unnerving. Even the Zeltron and Fives seemed intrigued, despite their current state.

Rex, especially, seemed to tense in wait.

"I… I'm not exactly sure." Demurring wasn't her strong suit, so she pulled a grimace up at the captain. "There's always the Refugee Relief Movement. Nice and boring. You'd love it."

He took a slow, deliberate swig of his drink before answering. "Yup."

"What about those...Altisians?" Coric persisted.

Ahsoka blinked, truly startled. He _remembered_ them?

"Master Altis." Rex leaned his elbows on the table, hands loosely cupped around his drink. He looked with interest at Coric. "He's still technically Jedi, right?"

"Alt-ihs? Altisian?" Tup leaned forward, brow furrowed. "What's that?"

Ahsoka opened to her mouth to reply, but surprisingly, Rex answered for her. "Altisian Jedi. Kind of a...different sect of Jedi."

The Twi'lek—Tullin, Ahsoka remembered—was looking between them all, tattoo-frosted head-tails swaying. "Jedi have different..._sects?_"

"What's so different about them?" Tup asked, intrigued.

"Some minor things...and a couple major."

Ahsoka wasn't sure if she liked the direction of the conversation. Discussing the intricacies of the Order, in a club, surrounded by civilians and troopers and the stench of sweat and too much alcohol, it all seemed—well, heretical. "Sort of. From what I know—which isn't much, really—Master Altis didn't agree with every tenant held by the Jedi Order. So he...sort of...started a new one."

Put simplistically. _Really_ simple.

...But that _was_ an option—one she hadn't yet considered. The mission alongside Master Altis on JanFathal had been educating and illuminating on a variety of levels.

Both Tup and Tullin were looking at her with avid interest, and she could tell Rex was listening carefully, his whole body tense despite the tankard he was draining. Tullin, at least, seemed to sense Ahsoka's reticence after a moment and flicked her fingers. "The Jedi and their troopers freed Ryloth and fight for my sisters and alongside my brothers every time the Separatists return. That is all I need to know."

"I want to know," Tup, of course, had to interject.

Ahsoka sighed. "Just...differences. I remember something about Masters having multiple Padawans."

"Del mentioned Master Altis was married," Coric put in. Del, Ahsoka knew, was one of the very few veterans of Geonosis left in Torrent. He also had a lady friend among one of the GAR's outside shipping contractors who had the best spacer stories to share—especially since the lady was technically an ex-smuggler. Not that the GAR seemed to care.

"Yeah, that too," Ahsoka said.

"Those are...important reasons to form a sect?" Tullin asked. The Twi'lek radiated an innocent curiosity, and Ahsoka realized she'd never really _talked_ with civilians before about her Order—_former_ Order. Not in any detail.

Ahsoka fiddled with the pink drink's long-stemmed base. "According to the Order, yes. For a lot of reasons."

"But I don't understand," Tullin said, with a little shiver of her headtails.

"I never understood that about you Jedi," Beité spoke up, having surfaced long enough to put her two credits in—although Fives had other ideas. He seemed fully entranced with the back of Beité's ear."Why not enjoy the pleasures offered by a beating heart? A lifetime is too short not to truly _live_."

That was rich, considering what the Jedi had done for thousands of years to keep the peace. "Trust me," Ahsoka shot back irritably, "Jedi 'live' plenty." _And die plenty, too._

"Ah, but do you kiss?" The way Beité pulled Fives down to her neck, and the way Fives then trailed down to her collarbone, had Ahsoka shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Tup was right. Those two needed a room. Beité's subtle wash of emotions and pheromones hadn't bothered her at first, but sitting this close to her—for this long—it was starting to feel like an itch beneath her montrals. "Make _love_?"

Ahsoka felt her cheeks burning. "We're pretty busy. War to fight and all."

"The boys seem to handle it well," Beité, of course, had to say, just as Rex decided to take offense. Again.

"_We_?" He turned in his seat to stare at Ahsoka, incredulous. "We're all here because _you _left, remember?"

Ahsoka's temper finally snapped. "Fine. _You_!" She smacked him on the shoulder bell, loud enough that a few other troopers glanced over. "I'm _not _a Jedi, I _don't _really want to talk about it, I _have _been kissed, so would everyone please _lay off_?"

A heavy silence reigned around the table for a long moment. With a groan, Ahsoka propped her elbows up and rubbed at her forehead.

"Ahsoka." Coric's voice had the clipped, no-nonsense tone of a medic considering a particularly irascible patient. "When was the last time you ate or slept?"

It took her a moment to remember. "A few days." She'd caught a nap in the GAR prison center, that first go around. It felt like an eternity ago. And food hadn't really been on her mind, not with either the stench of the Undercity in her nose or angry troopers at her back.

"_Days_?"

Ahsoka winced at Beité and Tullin's horrified response. Right. They didn't know Jedi. "It's not—"

"Not acceptable," Coric finished for her. When she rolled her eyes, he leaned over the table. "You need food. _And_ rest. And don't argue," he added when she opened her mouth.

Rex had already conjured a serving droid seemingly by the sheer power of will and ordered food for the entire table. At least they left her alone for a moment; Tullin fluttered over a non-existent scar on Coric's cheek and Tup extolled the virtues of a new kit mod to Rex.

Maybe she _did_ just need food. Her head still ached and the Force still felt, at best, like a badly tuned holoreceiver through all her senses—and at worst, like a hurricane was trying to blow through a drain pipe. And the thought of crawling somewhere and sleeping off the nightmare of the past three days sounded like a dream. But the simple reality of never seeing any of these men after this night…

No, she wasn't going anywhere. Not until they had all wandered back to their barracks and she had to face the inevitable.

"So…" Fives began, pulling Beité close again and nuzzling his nose against her neck. "A kiss, huh? Fess up—was it a brother?"

Ahsoka groaned. Of course Fives wouldn't let the subject die. She was _not_ going to discuss Carlac.

"Rex _almost _kissed me," she heard herself say instead. To her immediate, abject horror.

In the complete silence around the table, Ahsoka shrank down into her seat, a deathgrip on the pink drink's stem. What in all poodoo had made her dredge _that_ up? "...and I'm also delusional. Maybe. I think." Force take it, she was _still_ talking. She'd thought she had conquered her mouth at least a year ago.

By the remarkable statue of ice sitting next to her, she had really stepped in it. Poodoo.

Fives and Coric were staring in blatant fascination and Ahsoka was pretty sure her chevrons were about to catch fire. Tup's gaze was swiveling between the two of them like it was all a particularly fascinating hoverball match.

Beité, of course, broke the silence. "Well?" She rested her chin on one hand and beamed at both Ahsoka and Rex. At least _she _was amused. "What stopped you, Captain?"

The Zeltron's question seemed to unfreeze the captain. Rex took a slow, deliberate drink, placed the mug on the table with a light clink, and shifted in his seat just enough to face Ahsoka, one eyebrow lifted. "From what I recall, you kissed me."

Ahsoka breathed a silent sigh of relief. Two separate incidents—and the latter had dissolved into one of the most awkward and embarrassing moments of her life—but his chilled tinge of anger had thawed into what felt a lot like a determined sort of resolve.

A giggle bubbled out of her before she could stop it. Maybe she really did need food. And some sleep.

"Woah, woah—" Fives leaned heavily against the table, staring at the two of them. "That deserves some explaining."

"No," Rex shot back. "It doesn't, trooper."

The giggle turned into snorting laugh.

"I think I agree with the ARC," Coric put in, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

"That's the first time," Fives muttered.

Tup and the two women only looked bemused, although whether it was over Ahsoka's failed attempts at kissing or at her choked laughter, she couldn't tell. Now that she'd started, she couldn't seem to stop.

But she had to at least _try _to clarify, so she swallowed hard. "It wasn't really like that." When they all stared at her with matching grins, she added, "He didn't—"

"Ahsoka." Rex, at least, still had his senses.

"But you didn't!"

"_Ahsoka_."

For whatever reason, Coric burst into laughter and Ahsoka followed, snorting like a nerf at the bizarre cross of stern disapproval and annoyance on the captain's face—and the mild panic radiating off him like a staticky holoprojector.

"Where's the damn food?" he growled.

"Think you need another drink, too, Captain," Fives noted, all good cheer as he plucked something burgundy off a passing serving droid's platter and plunked in front of Rex.

"_Fek_ no," Rex snapped.

When Ahsoka made a grab for it, just to irritate Rex again, he muttered something unkind about Fives' true gene donor and dropped the drink into the hand of a passing private.

"You really want a drink, Ahsoka?" Fives was suspiciously amicable and Ahsoka peered at him with narrowed eyes. He reached past Beité and nudged the pink drink with one thick finger. It looked morosely dull after sitting so long untouched. "As many pink things as you want. On me."

He really shouldn't have been surprised when the drink landed on his head and every trooper in the vicinity roared at his expense.

Not a drop landed on Beité.

Ahsoka _had _been a Jedi, after all.

* * *

_N__err'avrei: lucky brother [Ryl]_

A/N: Rounds and rounds of gratitude and applause to laloga, who graciously stepped in as an absolutely marvelous beta while impoeia is away!


	9. Chapter 8

"Well, this is awkward."

—B1 Battle Droid

* * *

"It takes out the lag, you know—between when your visor polarizes—" Tup kept right on, as he had for the past hour.

"I'll take my chances," Rex said, with the pointed finality of a ronto. Rex had tamped down firmly on his own impatience the longer Tup had rambled on about Fives' latest bucket-mod, but enough was enough.

But Tup, like most brothers, was a lot more obstinate than a ronto. "It's a good mod—" Tup tried again, but Coric cut him off.

"What's this I hear about a ship?" the medic asked quietly.

"An ambassadorial shuttle," Rex said, glad to take up Coric's line of thought. He shifted just enough to keep his arm from falling completely asleep. "Slated for decommission. General Kenobi requisitioned it."

They were still seated at one of 79s' cheap synth-leather booths, minus a few; Fives and his Zeltron had disappeared and the Twi'lek, Tullin, had wandered off to chat with a few other ladies at the central bar.

After inhaling more food than was probably healthy—especially the kind of food served at 79s—Ahsoka had simmered back down to her normal self and entertained the table with her odd partnership with Ventress, much to the delighted horror of Tullin. Fives' attempt to one-up her backfired. "Your spy network? Of _Zilkins_?" Tup had asked, incredulous.

The ARC had shrugged, noted that a conduit worm might be a good idea to have on one's side, and stolen the fried daro-root slices off Ahsoka's plate.

As the night progressed, they had dredged up everything from Kamino's training to their first sighting of a Jedi—"_Not_ a good first impression. A little youngling of a Padawan and panicking out of his mind on Geonosis," Coric said with a grimace—to just how many rounds Ahsoka had gone against the boys out on the sparring mats. And won. "There really isn't anything better to do, between assignments," she'd admitted to Beité.

But before Rex could thank any deities for all the normality, Ahsoka had nodded off. On his shoulder.

The knowing gleam in Coric's eye and the smirk on Fives' face had been enough to knock some buckets together—except for the minor fact that any movement would have dislodged the warm weight tucked along his arm.

It shouldn't have surprised him, and really, it_ didn't_ surprise him that she hadn't slept or eaten since that whole mess began. She was—no, _had been—_a Jedi, but even Jedi eventually felt the pull of their bodies' demands. Especially when said ex-Jedi was, in reality, still not much more than a kid.

Coric considered him for a moment, muscles working along the man's jaw. "Why do I get the feeling she's not really leaving the war?"

Because she wasn't. No matter all her options, Rex's gut instinct knew she'd be sticking around, one way or another.

But he couldn't say that out loud. Not yet.

In the silence following Coric's words, Tup seemed to take the hint and took his leave, wandering toward a raucous group centered around Jesse and Kix.

"Why the twenty-four hour delay?" the medic asked.

Rex took a long breath through his nose, thoughts shifting through what little had been sent via that terse internal comm report and his own suspicions. "The Council requested it. Ringo Vinda needs a joint force..." And Skywalker's continued silence—since finding Ahsoka in the Undercity, Rex hadn't received a single comm from his general—was telling. He suspected the Council was at least slightly concerned for their much vaunted Hero. "Official report will be issued this morning. General Tiplar is being recalled from spec-ops to assist. Brass figured the reassignment and briefing needed that long."

"Tiplar?"

"General Tiplee's sister."

"Sister?" Coric's surprise was genuine. "I know better, but sometimes I forget they have families."

Rex glanced down at the blue and white montrals resting against his pauldron. He knew enough about Jedi to understand how oddly similar theirs and the clones' existences were: that twist of the galaxy's sabacc hand that labeled any-being as either clone, Force-sensitive, or just a typical wet.

Coric's face was thoughtful as he considered Rex, fingers tapping against his vambraces where he'd folded them across his stomach plating—and then the corners of his mouth twitched. "Didn't know you'd gone even that far."

Rex inwardly groaned. _Of course. The fekking kiss. _"Not open to discussion."

"The war won't last forever, Rex."

"She's a kid."

"Technically, you're eleven."

"Don't start."

Coric lifted one eyebrow. "There's more to life than being a soldier."

Rex nearly snorted. The irony of any clone saying that was thick enough to patch a hull breach. "Don't push it, lieutenant."

Both of Coric's eyebrows rose. "Pulling rank? It _does_ bother you."

Rex let his silence speak.

Coric's laugh was soft and somehow wry. "Well," he said, sliding himself out of the booth. "I'd love to stay and discuss our individual value, but there's a lovely lady waiting for me. Funny, she seems to like me best when I'm _not_ wearing my kit."

"Coric—"

The medic hesitated, one hand still on the table, although the rest of him was turned toward the bar and his green-skinned Twi'lek.

Coric knew better than most; the medic had been one of the few able to assess Torrent after Umbara, able and willing to attempt to patch the holes that went far deeper than saber strikes. Of all the men who'd been called into testimony for Dogma's military trial, Coric had seemed to be the only one who'd grasped what _would_ have happened—what _should_ have happened—had Rex been a stronger man.

Let alone the aftermath...

_His own _shabla_ moment of insanity, after a court martial and execution that should've been his, if he'd been able to pull the trigger on Krell. _Something he should never have allowed, just as he should've protected his men—and had failed.

He couldn't say the words. They still tasted bitter and toxic and always would; acknowledgement of every wrong he'd allowed on the battlefield—one nightmare-fueled hell in particular—and he could only carry forward_. _Alone.

"Yeah," Coric said. He had turned his head, his profile not as sharp in the hazy light of the club. Rex recognized the deeper lines of age and strain, already tight around the soldier's eyes. "I know." The trooper let his hand drop from the table's edge and waded into the sparse crowd still roving through 79s.

Rex watched him go.

Coric had been a part of Torrent from the beginning, back on Kamino—all those endless drills and training and as Rex had earned the mantle of command through every blood- and sweat-slick moment. Of that original company formed by the Kaminoans, only Rex, Coric, and Del remained. Through two fekking years of war.

It was a sobering reality that Rex never dwelled on—except, apparently, tonight.

Over the steady thrum of the music, he could hear Tullin's trilling laugh, saw Coric lift her off her seat and bury his face against her neck, her head thrown back and the medic's hands already wandering.

With a sigh, Rex committed to the inevitable.

"Ahsoka," he said, close enough to her montrals that she'd feel the sound with enough force to wake her up.

She jerked upright with a mumbled, "Vector A-three-three," blinked owlishly, and then stared in consternation at the empty booth.

"Uh...oops."

Rex swallowed a chuckle at her expense. "I think I recall you sleeping through a hurricane on Giju."

She wrinkled her nose. "Oh, please. That was years ago."

He did chuckle, then. "Back when you were just a youngling?"

"Exact—hey!" Her scowl was fierce and completely ruined by the imprint of his pauldron on her cheek—and somehow all so reminiscent of their early months on the _Resolute_, when he'd been the assigned military mentor and she the ebullient student.

He nearly reached over to chuck her chin.

But her expression shifted, quick as the whirlwinds on Geonosis. "Sorry about earlier."

Rex straightened and rolled his shoulders, belatedly realizing he had hunched toward her while she'd slept. "Don't mention it."

"I really didn't—"

Rex held up a hand. "It was done, then—and still done, now. No use revisiting."

In the silence between them, she peered up at him, expression morose—except for the tell-tale twitch of her lips. "It was _that_ bad?"

At his sharp bark of laughter, she grinned. Whatever tension had settled along her shoulders melted away. So did his.

"Come on," he said, sliding out of the booth. "Most everyone's gone and I've got a pile of 'pads to read through before we ship out."

Grumbling, she followed after. "They opened this place, what, a year ago?"

"Something like that, yeah." Rex hadn't been thrilled with the decision, but his men needed more than the gym as a place to blow off steam.

"I tried to sneak in once—"

"On a bet from Fives." At her side-eyed glare, he nearly snorted. "You think I don't find out about these things?"

"Let me guess, you were the one to—"

"Yup."

Ahsoka stopped, and Rex with her. He bit back another snorting laugh at the expression on her face, which hovered somewhere between renewed respect and outright chagrin. "You really are no fun."

"In case you never noticed, fun doesn't come with the rank." At her laugh, he pulled her forward, sidestepping a serving droid as he guided her toward the main entrance. At this point in the night, what brothers he saw were stone drunk and falling off their bar stools, and he made a mental note to double tomorrow's drills.

But Ahsoka nudged his vambrace, gently enough that he paused to look down at her. Her smile was genuine, the most relaxed he'd seen since her return from Ilum and Florrum; it reached her eyes, bright even in the club's hazy lights and warm with more than her trademark humor. "Thank you. For everything."

"You deserved it." Rex touched his temple with two fingers, too casual a salute than she deserved, but he didn't want to draw attention. Not with this many drunk troopers around; they'd probably fall all over her. "And more, sir."

Her smile tightened—just for a minute—and then a little crease dipped between the white markings over her eyes. "Wait a minute," she said. Ahsoka turned back to the bar, then looked up at him. And—too late—he recognized that particular mischievous grin. "I don't have to go!"

"_I_ need to go. I still need to fight a war."

She waved a hand at him, eye markings now waggling, although he didn't miss her quick swallow or the way her smile tightened into more of a grimace. "Don't let _me_ keep you."

"Technically, you're not of age—"

"Oh, _come on_, Rex—"

But as she protested, Rex noticed sudden movement at the bar and one group of clones splintered, spilling out a stumbling, excruciatingly drunk Kix, the club's hazy, flashing lights reflecting off his intricately-shaved head. Even through the dim light, there was no mistaking the intent in the medic's eyes.

_Ah, hells._

"Ahsoka, let's go. Now."

"_Commander!_"

But Ahsoka had noticed Kix and already darted toward him, her face bright with delight. She'd made it only two steps before faltering—but by then, it was too late.

"Ex-c-commander, I mean," Kix stuttered, swaying forward and gripping her arms with more force than he needed to, a feral grin fixed on his face that was completely at odds with the grim fury in his eyes.

In the next breath, Rex was between them and shoving Kix back. "Pull it together, Kix," he hissed. "Now is not the time."

"Why not?" the medic slurred, throwing his hands in the air and glancing around. For the moment, they hadn't attracted a lot of interest; Rex knew it wouldn't be long unless he shut Kix down. "Seems like th' perfect time."

"Kix?" Ahsoka's hesitant question only seemed to provoke him, and with a quick shove to Rex's chest, he managed to get her in his sights again.

"Why'dya kill 'em?" Kix struggled and nearly fell over as Rex pulled him back to face him, only for the medic to lean roughly against Rex, peering over his pauldron. "You're so vapin' innocent, why'dya kill our brothers?"

"_What_?"

"_You heard me_!" There was an anguished, desperate note to his anger that surprised Rex just enough to let Kix—even drunk as a Corellian wine-maker—manage a violent twist out of the captain's grip. "We get killed all the time—but_ no_—" and he dragged out the word, only to have his mouth snapped shut for him by Rex's vambrace.

He'd known Kix had harbored a lot of anger since Umbara, but to see it—

No, he _should've _known.

Fierfek.

Another blur of white and blue and red medic's insignia, and Kix's arm was locked behind him. "That's enough, trooper," Coric said firmly.

"Woah—no, it's not," Ahsoka said, stepping into the fray between the three men—and then even closer to Kix. "What are you talking about?"

"Ahsoka," Rex growled, gripping her shoulder to pull her away.

"No, Rex," she shot back, not even glancing at him as she brushed his hand off and repeated, "Kix, what are you talking about?"

"You killed those men down in the prison sector, didn't you?"

"What? No—"

"_You did_!" he shouted, face twisted into something manic.

Now they were definitely attracting attention.

"Soldier, you are out of line. Coric—"

"_No_, Rex," Ahsoka snapped, and so did Rex's temper.

"I don't take orders from you anymore."

His hands were full from pushing her back and helping Coric keep Kix from slithering out of his hands, but he still saw her visibly blanch, eyes wide and hurt. He cursed under his breath.

_Really_? What did she expect?

"Fine," she ground out, and shooting past Rex, she gripped the edges of Kix's breastplate and dragged him down to meet her at eye-level. "Kix, I _didn't_ kill those men—and when I figure out who is really behind all this—"

"Yeah, right," he spat. Under Ahsoka's death grip on his breastplate, the medic's knees wobbled and would've likely hit the floor if Coric didn't still have his arm twisted up behind his back. Karking _di'kut_, how much fekking liquor had he scrounged up that night? "We've been there before, eh? Right in a firin' line, to shoot my best mate. Sounds like what you're lettin' 'em do, eh?"

Ahsoka flinched violently and dropped her hand from Kix's armor as if burned.

"Jesse, Coric, Tup," Rex snapped, taking note of the other two blue-and-white sets of armor hovering close by. "Get him out of here." When Kix turned his red-rimmed glare on Rex, it was the captain's turn to haul him up by the breastplate. "Out of line, soldier. You're restricted to base. Be grateful you're not sleeping this off in the brig."

Kix's face turned an ugly puce, but he subsided with a shake of his head and a muttered, "Jus' like you to take _their_ side."

Rex abruptly jerked him closer, enough that Kix gave a pained grunt when his arm, still in Coric's firm grip, was wrenched nearly out of its socket.

Rex knew better than to let Kix—a Kix drunk off his deeces, who probably wouldn't even remember any of this by the next morning—get under his skin. Rex had done what he had to do on Umbara—what he'd had _no choice_ but to do.

But the consequences were still festering a year later, rotten and black like the endless night of that damned planet.

Kix silently met his gaze, eyes bloodshot and embittered and dimmed by the glaze of alcohol. Rex shoved him away without a word.

With a jerk of his chin, Rex motioned for the three to move Kix on out. The club seemed diminished somehow once they were all gone.

"He really thinks I did it," Ahsoka said, in a small, shocked voice.

He glanced around; only a few sets of eyes were still turned toward them, some with mild curiosity, others with keen interest, even from the railings of the upper levels. All turned away at his notice, including the civilians.

_Fek_.

Grinding his teeth, he gestured for her to follow him out.

"Let's go, kid. Party's over."

* * *

"Why?" she asked, once they were clear of the club's main entrance. Rex had either commandeered another speeder or had ordered one of his men to bring the other around, because a familiar one-seater type rested near the wall and he headed straight for it.

She stood close to him as he straddled the seat and waited expectantly for her to clamber on behind him, bucket unclipped and ready to be dropped on his head. His anger radiated off him in waves, like heat rising off the desert. Even a step back did nothing to ease the needling pressure in her mind.

When his eyes flashed in irritation, she only looked at him, arms crossed over her chest and eyes narrowed. "Are there others who think that?" she kept on when he remained silent. "He wasn't like that...earlier. No one was like that. Not in the 501st."

With a sigh, Rex dropped his gaze to the helmet in his hands and rubbed at the black hatch marks. "Kix isn't usually a mean drunk. Tarkin's evidence...still stands."

"But—it was all thrown out—"

"Does that really matter?"

"_Yes!_" She stared at him, stunned, but he only shook his head.

"That's what the GAR says happened." His eyes were hard and glittered in the light of passing speeders. A chill ran down her spine; she'd known Rex for long enough to read when his temper had been stretched too far. He leaned toward her and lowered his voice, but every word was clipped and sharper than a vibroblade. "And that's why you need to let this go."

She could only gape at him, completely at a loss for words.

He straightened after a moment, pulling his bucket on and disappearing behind the black visor. "Get off Coruscant. Go start a new life. Forget the war, forget—" He hesitated. "Just forget _this_ life."

It took her a moment to pry open her mouth. "You know me better than that, Rex." Her own voice sounded too small, too young, and she clenched her jaw against the tightness in her chest.

Rex met her gaze through his visor, but only for a second. His bucket jerked to the side and with a humming whine, he revved the speeder's repulsors. "I'll take you to the hangar."

The finality to his words made her stiffen.

"No. But thanks." She studied his averted profile, utterly thrown by the turn of the night. She hadn't realized—how could she? But why would they _not_ throw out the evidence? Yes, troopers had died, but _she_ hadn't done it. "I—I think I'll walk."

"Ahsoka."

He was even angrier, but she gritted her teeth. He'd get over it. "I'll see you around, Rex."

"_Ahsoka_."

But even as she turned away and he made a grab for her forearm, another familiar voice shouted out across the speeder platform. "_Oy!_"

Ahsoka blinked in surprise. What now—was _Fives _harboring some sort of resentment, too?

The ARC, complete with zagging, blue-lined kit and swaggering kama jogged the length of the speeder pad, from where a pedwalk linked the club to a vertical maze of malls and open-air arcades, all of them aglow in Coruscant's hazy night with flashing neon and blindingly bright signs. Fives' wide smile was just as bright.

No surprise, his still-sparkling Zeltron friend wasn't far behind him, laughing and arm-linked with—of all beings—a dour-faced male Muun.

Ahsoka decided she really didn't want to know.

"Do _you _think I killed those men?" she asked, the moment he'd stepped in range.

Fives' wide grin dimmed, and his hands—which he'd held up to ostensibly grab her in a hug—dropped. He glanced over her shoulder at Rex, then back down at her. "Who's the _shabuir _I need to kick back to Kamino?"

Ahsoka refolded her arms over her chest. "Do you?"

"Ahsoka—" Rex started in.

"_Fek_, no. And no one else does, either. Not if they have two neurons still knockin' around inside their buckets."

She turned and looked pointedly at Rex, who had pulled off his bucket again. He rolled his eyes and muttered a few choice words.

Fives' sharp laugh was unexpectedly close to her montrals and she jumped in surprise. "Let me guess—some _sheb_-head had too much to drink?"

"Kix," she admitted. The fact that it was _Kix_ stung—Kix, who she'd laughed with and kipped beside, who had patched her up countless times and had never, ever seemed to be angry about _anything_, even when a trooper was being obstinate over an injury.

But Fives had fixed his attention on Rex and some sort of unspoken discussion flew between the two of them.

Her aggravation spiked to new levels. "Thanks, guys," she said curtly, "but it's time for me to go."

That jolted Fives into action. "Ah, ah—" He grabbed her in one swoop of his arms. "The captain has to give you a proper goodbye." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she wondered if she could pull a drink from the inside of the bar to drop on his head again.

"_Fives_," Rex snapped just as Ahsoka twisted out of the ARC's grip.

"Seriously, Fives," she said, holding up her hand when he got grabby again. "I need to go on. And you guys have a campaign to get ready for."

She tried and failed to ignore the pang of guilt that chased on the heels of her own words. Force knew how many capable Jedi they needed out there—_No, Ahsoka_. _Don't go there._

"Well, then." Fives shifted to stand at attention—or half-attention, at least. It was mostly ruined by the cocky grin on his face, but the salute he shot her was genuine and radiated respect. "It was an honor, sir. I expect we'll see you around. Some way or another, right?"

She shook her head but smiled anyway, glad that _someone_ was on her side of things. Although she wasn't sure what to think when Master Kenobi and _Fives_—of all two people—seemed to agree on intent, if not on actual destination. "Thanks, Fives."

He laughed—and before she could resist—he swept her up and kissed her.

Granted, he landed closer to her cheek than her mouth, and so quick she was too surprised to react. It was enough of a shock that she didn't even notice the datachip slipped into her palm until Fives was backing away with another laugh. "I can't be your first," he said, winking before he gestured at Rex. "But I couldn't let that _di'kut_ get the first _goodbye_ kiss."

"Fives!" the captain growled, sounding a lot like a broken holorecord.

Maybe for Fives' health and safety, Ahsoka's thoughts were too focused on the datachip to do much more than stare, bemused, at the ARC as he backpedaled out of Rex's reach and slipped his arms around Beité, who only beamed benignly up at him and continued her animated, one-sided conversation with the Muun. Another half-salute from the ARC and a barking laugh, and Fives had guided his two companions back into 79s.

"Rex..." Ahsoka said, studying the small chip in her hand with the pads of her fingers. It was non-military, non-standard. "I think I will take that lift to the hangar, if you're still offering."

* * *

**A/N**: I'm deeply indebted to the fabulous **laloga**, who was super-patient while this chapter was dredged up from the tips of my toes.


	10. Chapter 9

"Might I suggest less sleeping and a little more work?"

—Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi

* * *

_Republic's finest, puking his guts out._

Coric tightened his grip on Kix's shoulder and felt for the man's pulse, moving with him when Kix heaved forward again. The beat beneath his hand was elevated—but not rapid. Sweat-slick skin, distinct pallor but not waxy; nothing too alarming. Still… "Kark it, Jesse. How much did he have?"

Another wet splat hit the duracrete and Jesse winced from his place across from Coric. The trooper only shook his head and adjusted his grib on Kix's shoulder bell.

After hauling a grimly silent Kix out of 79s, Coric had taken one look at the greenish cast to to the medic's face and vetoed any kind of air transport. Flying vomit was _not_ the preferred ending to his evening.

No, his preferred ending had only smiled and winked at him as the sight of Kix being an utter rancor's ass dragged him away from her soft touch.

Their small group—Kix slung between Coric and Jesse while Tup trailed close behind—had only made it a couple of blocks before Kix abruptly leaned over and lost it. Another couple rounds—"You've got worse aim on the line," Jesse complained, with a disgusted look at his own boots—and they managed to haul Kix into an alley.

"Better out than in." Coric shook his head. Kix _should _know better. Even a pissed off, moodier-than-an-eight-year-old-cadet Kix. "You know, even with our metabolisms, there _is_ such a thing as alcohol poisoning."

"Do you need your med-kit?" Tup asked, not-quite-hovering at Coric's side. Coric couldn't fault him; the smell wafting up from the duracrete was about as fragrant as a rackarian gutfish.

Coric shook his head. "Best medicine is time. But I'd recommend putting a break on the sabacc for a few rotations." He shot a pointed look at Jesse. If any trooper was winning enough leave-creds to get _this_ drunk, command would need to take a closer look—something Coric knew Rex would rather not have to make an issue of.

There were far too few opportunities for any of them to be more than just soldiers.

Jesse jerked his chin down in an affirmative but didn't say anything; from the looks of it, he was trying to hold his breath as much as possible. Coric snorted; Jesse wasn't a rookie, but certainly didn't have a medic's stomach. _Try picking shrapnel out of a gut_.

Another damp splatter and this time, a low moan. "Still with us, eh?" Coric said to the figure hunched under his hands.

A string of non-Basic curses answered him. Hells, they weren't even Mando'a.

"Impressive," Jesse quipped, albeit weakly. He patted Kix on the shoulder. "Didn't know you knew that much Huttese."

Another mutter and Kix staggered back upright, only to make a stumbling lurch to the grimy plascrete that plastered the side of one building. Even on the surface levels of Coruscant, not everything could be pristine and gleaming—although, from the looks of the alley, Kix wasn't the first to drag himself away from 79s and have an heart-to-heart with his stomach.

"You all done?" Coric asked. "Or do you need to paint the wall, too?" He didn't hold back the irritation in his voice; Kix had taken the deaths down in the prison sector hard, but imitating the business end of a ronto wasn't an acceptable outlet.

Kix grumbled something about Coric's face and droid excrement.

With a sigh, Coric slipped a hand under Kix's upper arm. Kix shrugged him off. Coric stepped even closer and pitched his voice low. "Let it go, Kix."

"Why should I?" Kix's voice was equally low, but reduced to a wet rasp. He turned his head to fix Coric with a stony glare.

Coric studied him; the glassy, red-rimmed eyes and, beneath, that gray-tinged pallor. He'd bet real credits it didn't come from too many shots of Alderaani bourbon. 79s or even the last few days dirt-side also wasn't the source of the deepening lines across the younger medic's brow.

"Report to the base med-bay after you've slept this off," Coric said. "Eleven-hundred hours."

When Kix growled his dissent, Coric laid a hand along his vambrace. "We need you at a hundred percent when we ship out, trooper." He pressed on the armor, enough that Kix's arm trembled and his balance wobbled, even though he was braced against the wall. "You're a good medic, but you won't be good for anything if your body isn't physically up to it." Coric fixed Kix with another direct, hard stare when the man opened his mouth in a snarl. "You know I'm right."

It took Kix a moment, but he relented with a slight dip of his chin and a reflexive swallow. There may have been a flash of regret in his eyes, but Kix had dropped his gaze quickly enough that Coric wondered if he'd imagined it.

Satisfied, Coric let his hand fall away and stepped back—only to nearly bowl over Jesse. "Kark it, man. Breathing room!"

"Sorry, sir." As Jesse's attention was still fully locked on Kix, Coric highly doubted that. But then Jesse _did _turn his attention on Coric and he suddenly wished for a few extra doses of tact in all the younger troopers' brains. "He's fine? He'll be alright, right, sir?"

"No, Jesse," Kix snapped irritably. To his credit, he pushed himself upright and managed to at least stand without much wavering. "Severe case of nerf-pox. 'Fraid it's fatal."

"Ha. Haha." Jesse made to shove at Kix's shoulder and Coric hastily intervened. "Let _me_ be the one to make the jokes."

"Why?" muttered Kix. "To perforate my eardrums?"

"Oh, _now_ you're the funny one."

"No, just the charming one." Kix stepped forward, between Coric and Jesse—and although he needed a steadying hand once, did well enough. Enough to get back to base— "You've got the funny. A winning team—we could ju—uust—"

—or not.

"Easy!" Coric's arm shot out as Kix toppled forward like a felled walker.

But Jesse made the catch, and with a good-natured laugh, slung Kix's arm around his neck. "They should put us in with the Seppie Council. We'd win them over and we could all retire to 500 Republica. All the nuevian sundaes we can stomach."

Kix groaned, "_Don't_ mention food right now," as Coric steered the two toward the alleyway's exit. But one of their number wasn't following; when Coric glanced back, Tup was staring down the length of the alley, where the hazy night deepened to full darkness.

"Tup?" Jesse asked. He'd noticed Coric's hesitation and twisted around, too. "You with us, brother?"

For a surreal moment, Coric's hand twitched for a nonexistent blaster. There was an odd, familiar intensity to Tup's posture and Coric's muscles tensed as he recognized it: a trooper ready for a signal, coiled in wait for an assault's forward surge.

Kark it, they were on _Coruscant_, not on the line.

"Tup?" Coric kept his voice low. "What's on sight?"

"Nothing," Tup replied too quickly. He turned, abrupt as a parade drill, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. He didn't even glance at his brothers as he headed toward the mouth of the alleyway. "Let's get to base."

Coric stared at him, then back where the alley tunneled off out of sight between the rising 'scrapers. Nothing moved in the night other than sluggish tendrils of steam that rose from the duracrete in a dirty haze. Nothing set his own instincts on edge.

By the time he turned back around, Tup was waiting at the pedwalk beneath the stark light of the raised glowrods. He still wouldn't meet any of the group's gaze, and as they exited the alleyway, he shot forward, leading them along the familiar walkways. Coric shook his head at the whole lot of them; the night had been weird enough without a spooked trooper and an _osik_-faced brother.

"Guess someone's been sneaking off with my holomovies." Jesse stared at Tup's back plating with a morose sort of half-scowl. Tup's quicker pace planted him far ahead of the group—although he didn't seem inclined to slow down much. "I wondered what happened to _Attack of the Cthons_."

"Considering your _other_ movie tastes," Coric said at his driest, "he's more likely to be terrified of a roaming pack of Zellies."

Over Jesse's protests, Kix managed an actual laugh. "Remember, Jesse." The medic wriggled his fingers out in front of him as if over a keypad. "_Reset_ the holoterminal."

Jesse, never down long, shrugged easily. "I'll just sign in on _your_ chip, next time."

* * *

Ahsoka was quiet during their ride back to the Temple hangar, a fact that should have tipped Rex off.

He eased the speeder down beneath Processional Way, past the looming pillars and zig-zagging pedwalks and into the hangar's half-lit maw. Ahsoka's shuttle was painted a subdued maroon beneath the bare lighting, although the pale glowrods reflected in thin glowing strips across the shuttle's transparisteel cockpit.

A tiny voice inside of him made note that he was just a tad envious of her new-found freedom. A quick mental choke, and that little voice went silent.

"Rex?" she finally asked as he dismounted and she followed suit. When he glanced her way, her brow was scrunched and her gaze was still fixed on his speeder. She tipped her montrals toward the shuttle. "Do you have a moment?"

He _should_ leave.

But even now, the prospect of heading back to the Coruscant base—only to bunk down with all the half-formed suspicions from the last few days and the knowledge that his own troopers doubted the best among them—was a leaden weight that had dropped to 'when absolutely necessary' on his list of duties. He had half a mind to wait it out on the _Resolute_ until he was called for the next war council.

His opinion must've shown on his face, because the corners of her mouth twitched. "I'll take that as a yes." And without another word, she marched off for the shuttle.

Rex didn't need any more of an invitation.

"It's a good ship," he said once he'd mounted the hatchway ramp and taken a closer look at the interior. Nothing expansive; all dark durasteel, with a bunk inset on one side and a variety of multi-use and storage on the other. A single doorway, open, led to the cockpit and Ahsoka had already taken the pilot's seat, head bent over one of the comm arrays.

"Hm?" She glanced up at him, then around at the cockpit when he came to stand in the doorway, one elbow propped against the frame. Her brow was still furrowed in thought. "Yeah." She grimaced. "Recognize it?"

He _had_ recognized it—although at the time, the stenciled numerals had only nudged at the back of his brain like a small, insistent comm reminder. On the flight back to the GAR base, he'd let the Coruscanti auto-traffic control the speeder and dug through what records he could access via his HUD. Oddly, it took a roundabout search through the database to find out when exactly it had been requisitioned to Generals Skywalker and Kenobi; all other aspects of the mission to the Chrelythiumn system were securely classified.

"General Skywalker called it the Mortis Mission, correct?"

Ahsoka wrinkled her nose. "Yeah." She leaned back in the seat, head tilted up and gaze tracking along the various reader-boards above the console and viewing pane. "Did he ever tell you anything about that mission?" Before he could respond, she held up a hand. "Wait. Scratch that."

"The answer's 'no', if you're worried for some reason." He watched her, somewhat wary. She was hiding something, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Listen... About Kix—"

She waved him off with one hand and a self-deprecating twist of her lips. "The records say I did it, right?" She shrugged, but Rex recognized the determined line between her eye markings. "That's all he can go by. Can't say I blame him."

The last statement rang with enough truth that he winced. "Fives is right. The men _know_ you—"

"And I knew Barriss." She shook her head. "You don't have to defend him or excuse him or anyone else." Her head bent forward and her frame hitched with a deep, long breath. "But I did want to thank you for—for not believing I did it. That night."

Rex stared at the juncture of her montrals and the metallic pieces of her headdress, dull in the shuttle's low light.

The inescapable truth of the matter was that he _had _considered the possibility. In the same breath that he'd stated his trust, he'd known the evidence was stacked obscenely against her. That three more clones were dead from a lightsaber's distinctive slice, and Ahsoka had been the only possible—if not _plausible_—suspect.

Until he'd seen her.

Krell had made no attempt to spare anyone; Ahsoka had dodged and deflected, her defense as recognizable as if Skywalker and Rex had been right there, coaching her through civvie disarming and avoidance.

None of that negated his own doubt. "Ahsoka, I called the APB on you." She lifted her head and he forced himself to meet her steady gaze. "I'm the reason they used live rounds. I reported that you killed three clones, and that you had to be considered armed and dangerous."

She was silent a long moment, the brilliant blue of her eyes dimmed to gray in the half-darkness of the cockpit. He held her gaze; he owed her this.

But instead of disappointment or dismissal or any other expected response, she dropped her focus to his waist—to his holsters, empty and nearly weightless without the comforting heft of his deeces. "I fought beside you for two years, Rex," she said. "You didn't take a shot. You didn't even draw. If you _had _thought I did it, why didn't you try to take me down?"

He swallowed against an inexplicably dry mouth.

"You would've, you know," she went on, voice soft. "You know me well enough to know how to land at least a stun—and don't deny it," she added, when he opened his mouth.

It was true. It also hit too close to the nightmare that had replayed in his sleep, over and over, since Umbara. The cruelty of his subconscious—replacing Krell's face with hers, ready for execution—was an irony he bore as punishment for Dogma's fate and for all the men who'd died on that fekking planet.

"But you didn't," she finished, with a clear, adamant finality, as if that were the only act that mattered.

"You ran, Ahsoka. Even though you did everything to avoid a confrontation, that was enough proof to cast doubt."

She flinched, but her mouth thinned to a narrow line and her eyes took on a steely, determined intensity.

"And that's why you're digging into this, isn't it?" he finished, observing the familiar posture of a certain Padawan who wouldn't let anything get in her way—not when it came to a perceived injustice. "Not for you, but..." _There are worse options, _he reminded himself_. Like going off to be a damned bounty hunter_. "Just don't let me catch your holo up on the Wanted list."

Her laugh was short and awkwardly abrupt. "Can I ask you something?" Without waiting for the obvious, she went on, "Does your helmet record _every_thing—even when you're not wearing it?"

"That's two somethings, and no, it doesn't." This, at least, was a topic he was fully comfortable with. He unclipped and shifted his bucket around to show its innards; dark, with the soft blink of electronics. "It goes on stand-by when there's no active use. Still receives transmissions, but re-routes comms and commands to my 'brace."

"Stand-by, but not _off_, right?"

"Right." It should've been unnerving that she had her own suspicions regarding the troopers' tech. Instead, it was a relief.

Despite the thoughtful gaze she still leveled at him, her lips twitched. "Things I didn't even know until I was out of the GAR."

A memory bubbled up in his mind and he fought back a laugh. "I recall you trying on a few trooper's buckets."

"Hey, they've changed since then. And besides, those were _pilots_' helmets."

And she'd looked ridiculous; tiny, bony body with Lieutenant Axe's helmet dropped down to her shoulders. She'd even attempted to make a comm call and somehow rerouted everything to the PA system.

Rex recalled reaming her out. Twice. And she'd subsequently tried to steal _his_ bucket for a week—up until her disastrous first command above Ryloth. "That was your first mistake. Command buckets have the best tech."

"You wouldn't let me try on yours, remember?"

"Regs are regs."

"I'd believe you more," she muttered, with a familiar roll of her eyes, "if I didn't know how many regs you toss out the viewport on any given rotation."

His grip on the helmet's rim tightened. Rex dropped his focus to the nicks and scrapes and scores across the plastoid, a focal for the brief moment he needed. "Regs have their place, Ahsoka."

She snorted in disbelief, and when she didn't say any more, he lifted his head. She hadn't caught the double meaning, and he wasn't sure if he was thankful or not.

But a little, sly smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "You'd probably make a good pilot."

He raised an eyebrow at her. Where had _that_ come from? "Careful, kid. I might get insulted."

"Okay, maybe not _now_." She tipped her montrals to the side, towards the co-pilot's seat. "Maybe…after the war."

A buzz started in his ears and swam down to his chest when he caught her meaning. The fact that she would even _suggest_, after his admission of doubt, after _everything_...

When he didn't reply, Ahsoka faltered. "I—I mean only if you, you know, get tired of the boring life." She flashed a lopsided grin and shrugged. "Unless you really want to take up something normal. Like accounting."

"Ah—no pushing flimsi for me_." _His fingers twitched and he tamped down the response he _wanted_ to give her—which seemed to hover somewhere between the urge to either shake her or kiss her. Yet instead of something polite and innocuous and safe, he heard himself say, "I appreciate the offer, but I think we both know the likelihood of my survival."

Silence stretched between them.

"The war won't last forever, Rex." She echoed Coric's statement perfectly and he shifted on his feet, fingers sliding over the bucket's rim. Her eyes dropped to his hand. "Rex—"

"I _will_ do my duty, Ahsoka."

Fek, he sounded like a pretentious ass.

If she took offense, she didn't show it; she was back to studying him, her eyes soft and thoughtful, and if he'd expected some other emotion to cross her face, he would've been disappointed. "Then the offer stands, Rex," she said.

The buzzing dropped further, down into his stomach, and for the first time in almost a year, he felt utterly awkward in her presence. "I should go."

Her throat worked for a moment before she simply nodded.

Rex readjusted his grip on his bucket, re-clipped it to his side, stalling, but there wasn't any more to say besides, "Goodbye, Ahsoka." His voice caught on her name, but he didn't care.

Instead of replying, she rose out of the pilot's chair and, without hesitating or asking, wrapped her arms behind his neck and hugged him close and _fek it all_ if the buzzing in his mind and body drowned out even his own heartbeat. This time, though, he managed to hold his head together long enough to pull her against him.

"I know you'll take care of him." Ahsoka's voice was broken and he breathed her in, musky leather and pungent oil. "I know you'll take care of your men."

"Nothing less."

"Take care of yourself, too."

He swallowed thickly, unable to articulate a response, much less a promise.

Her grip tightened and her words were warm against his ear. "Goodbye, Rex."

Rex could only hug her tighter, until the moment he _had_ to let her go, to take on the weight of her absence, hanging in silence over his mind.

Maybe the war _wouldn't_ last much longer. Maybe the losses they'd suffered recently were the brutal punch needed to push them further, farther—and faster. But it was a hope encased in ice, and he wondered what kind of fire could burn a path through the all the blood-soaked battlefields to any kind of final victory.

He hesitantly slid one hand beneath her rear lek, then down, along the curve of her upper back; felt the coolness of her bare skin through the thin twill of his gloves.

He had one more future to fight for, even if he would never have a part in it.

* * *

Padmé woke with a jolt.

The stem of her wineglass slipped from her fingers to land with a soft clink on the carpet, spilling the final dregs of her pale muscato across the rich weave. It took her a moment to reorient herself; the lights were on, but dimmed, the windows dark and the night beyond lit only by the never-slumbering city.

_Something_ had woken her. With a quick stoop and a twist of her shimmersilk night robe, she retrieved the wineglass and set it and the datapad she'd been reading—still scrolling regular news updates on the Temple's inner turmoil and Ahsoka's departure, like it was all just the latest celebrity scandal—on the low table close to her settee.

The hours had stretched by innocuously after she'd walked with the Twi'lek youngling from that Temple anteroom. She'd watched the sunset deepen to a bloody red before giving way to the softer palette of twilight, then the hazy constant of the Coruscanti night. As the chrono had slipped past midnight, Padmé wondered if he would come at all.

But as she padded across her sitting room toward the pool of darkness beyond her bedroom doorway, she _knew_ he was there.

His silhouette was black against her window, his fists clenched tight against his sides and the whole of him crackling with an energy that would've made a lesser creature scurry away. There were times she wondered if that instinct in her was actually a bit of wisdom, rather than weakness.

She knew he _couldn't_ take this well. Any of this.

"I'm sorry, Anakin."

Empty words, but he would need to hear them. She'd known, somehow, before Ahsoka had ever left the tribunal chamber, before Padmé had accepted the dismissed charges and watched her young friend from the corner of her eye, bent and broken even if her body hand't show it.

The damage had been too great to repair with simple words.

His head dipped but he didn't turn. "It wasn't your fault."

"No," she said after a quiet moment, watching as the tension radiated from him in almost palpable waves. "But I'd hoped it wouldn't come to any of this."

He didn't respond. She watched him for a long moment; studied the play of darkness and flickering light across his face, the lines that shouldn't have spidered out from his eyes, the muscles of his jaw working as he ground his teeth.

"Come to bed, Ani."

If possible, his fists clenched tighter. She could hear the leather creak, rubbing and sliding over metal and skin.

She closed in on him, letting her hands drift over his bracers, then up into the rough fabric of his robes. He still reeked of old oil and the Undercity's rot, laced with his ever-present cologne of ozone and plasma.

He was still silent, eyes hard and durasteel gray in the scant light cast by the windows. Her hand found the wild half-curls along the nape of his neck, felt the muscles there tense beneath her touch. He was so inexplicably different from the young man who had hovered awkwardly at her side, over two years before—harder, wilder, now, all of his mind and heart echoed with startling accuracy by his body.

"Obi-Wan…" he began, then let the words fade between them.

"Tell me."

Anakin turned to her, and the intensity of his gaze sent a flutter of something akin to fear down her spine to pool in her belly, anxious and tight.

She remembered—far too clearly—the quiet homestead on Tatooine and the stumbling admission he'd made.

"I won't ever let anything happen to you, Padmé."

She tried to twist her lips into a smile but failed. "You can't protect me from everything, Anakin." When his eyes hardened further, she reached a hand up to smooth over his brow, then down to cup his cheek. "Nor would I want you to."

But he shook his head, dislodging her hand. "This war…"

Again, he trailed off, and this time, she finished for him, linking her fingers in his. "It won't come between us, Anakin. Trust me in this."

"What would, then?"

She hesitated, taken aback by both his question and the underlying edge to his voice, the pressure and weight that all seemed to coalesce on her tongue.

"Come to bed, Anakin," she tried again.

"_Tell me_—"

"Come to bed," Padmé repeated, cutting him off effectively and lifting his hands to press his fingers against her face, then let them trail down to her collarbone, then her shoulders.

Finally, she saw the heat in his eyes shift, the _intent_ sway from one passion to another, too much like a pendulum, unable to find stillness or peace while pushed between an ever-demanding war and a never-satisfied Council.

Her voice lowered to a whisper as his hands drifted down to encircle her waist. "Let me be your wife, Anakin."

A tiny part of her mind acknowledged her implicit part in his defiance of the Council and the hypocrisy of her act; that regardless of his arguments against his Order's strictures, she understood the need for both distance and empathy in any peacekeeper's effort. As queen, she'd had no choice but to understand such things.

Yet among the greater cosmos, among the trillions that lived and died in the space of a single breath, surely their lives—from the perspective of the stars—were as insignificant as any other.

And as his arms wrapped around her and held her close, both gentle and terrifying in their strength, all she could offer him was her love.

* * *

Ahsoka scrubbed at her bleary eyes and failed completely at holding back a jaw-cracking yawn.

The last few hours had dragged by with all the sluggish energy of a Hutt, and at this point in the early dawn hours, her eyes felt like Tatooine had blown in for a stay.

Despite having hunched over the shuttle's processing terminal for—_Wow, five hours_, she realized with a glance at the chrono—she knew absolutely nothing else about the inner workings of the past three days. She _did_ know that the upper levels of the new med center had insets of Mustafarian obsidian and TriSol Shipping had lost their contract with the GAR over an embarrassing mixup with hovermops and munitions.

Fives' datachip proved to be a tangled mynock's nest of information—a bizarre assortment of medical supply manifests and GAR base recordings, everything from the as-built holos of the new med-center to a long history of shipment rosters and routes to the GAR base.

Rex had disappeared into the night with all the gruff intensity of a bull bantha and she'd slipped the shuttle out of the hangar to find a reasonably-priced public spaceport. Master Kenobi's credit bank chip had been placed conspicuously on top of the pilot's console, and once she'd settled the shuttle into an empty berth, she'd fixed her full attention on the ARC's final gift, nerves tingling in anticipation.

Only she really had expected something a little more...relevant.

Even now, as an early morning fog shrouded the graying dawn and dampened the port's floodlights to only pale, distant pinpricks, she was reduced to digging through the various files at random, hoping something blatantly obvious would pop up. Like the missing recordings from the prison sector.

_No luck._ With a groan, she leaned her elbows on the console and rubbed at her temples. "This is going to take a while."

Days. _Weeks._

But at the moment, she didn't have anything better to go off of and she knew _something_ was buried in the information. She just needed the clarity of mind to sort it and figure out all the connecting points—and hope it rose into a hologram that made some sense of the tangled thoughts that kept crowding through her head.

_Anakin said…_ What had he said in the prison cell, when he'd brought Padmé? "The clones didn't report seeing anything," she murmured, closing her eyes and rubbing at her brow. It would've been impossible _not_ to see the effects of her fight with Barriss; nothing left a mark quite like a lightsaber. There _had_ to be reports. Somewhere.

She just had to figure out _exactly _where—and who had them.

With a sigh, Ahsoka closed down the terminal and stood, stretching cramped legs. If she was going to be spending her time hunched over a console, she would at least get something to keep her eyes open.

"Wonder where Master Kenobi requested all his tea from," she muttered, peering around the shuttle and remembering the few times she'd sought his counsel. He _always_ had a kettle of tea ready when she had appeared at his doorway; granted, he'd probably always sensed her coming.

"_Your Force signature has all the subtlety of a hurricane_," he'd once remarked.

"_I'll take that as a compliment_, _Master,_" she'd shot back.

It only took a moment of searching the main cabin to find that, yes, Master Kenobi had ensured the shuttle was well-stocked—and obviously to his tastes. A neat little row of cyrodil tea lined one duraplast shelf.

She smirked at the delicately painted boxes. _Of course_.

A moment of more rummaging revealed a small conservator and a heating element; in another compartment, a sonic sink and an inset container for drinking water. She grimaced. The 'fresher, she knew from her last time in the shuttle, only had a sonic shower. Not the favorite way for any Togruta to get clean.

In a smallish side-compartment, her fingers brushed over a slim, metallic box. Curious, she pulled it out and keyed it open—

A Pantoran Constallis Goddess—all dark blue stone, rubbed smooth—from Chuchi, after the Trade Federation's failed blockade; the Togrutan sash—tattered and burned—from a young mother on Kiros; the little trooper helmet carved by Hardcase, who had been more artistic than he'd ever wanted to admit.

Her Padawan beads.

Ahsoka snapped the box shut and shoved it blindly into the recesses of its shelf. Some things—some memories—would need to wait before she could face them again.

She took a ragged breath. "Well, it's you and me, now," she said to the ship, and her voice echoed loud in her montrals. "Although I wouldn't mind a droid."

The ship gave a tiny answering hiss as she closed the storage unit's hydraulic door.

"Caf," Ahsoka decided. "Frothed caf." _That_ would keep her awake.

But as she descended from her ship, draped in a hooded cloak to ward off the pre-dawn chill, she wondered if she should've just taken a nap. The fog was thick enough to distort both her vision and her montrals, and each dark, docked ship loomed up out of the fog like durasteel-plated beasts, hunched and sleeping, waiting to be roused.

It only seemed appropriate that she hadn't even reached the edge of the port before she sensed the tell-tale pinprick in her mind of a nearby Force-sensitive.

Someone was following her.

* * *

Many thanks again to the wonderful **laloga**, who does wonders with her beta'ing skills! Obi-Wan's preferred tea, cyrodil, is of her creation and she kindly allowed me to plunk it into this 'verse, too.


	11. Chapter 10

"Here we go."

—Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano

* * *

Instinct and training took over.

With a silent push off from the permacrete, Ahsoka leapt onto the snub-nosed prow of an old shipping freighter, the durasteel dented and pebbled from its years in space and slicked with a fine layer of condensation. Her feet didn't stay still long enough to slip; another quick leap and she found purchase alongside the freighter's starboard engines, fingertips braced against the wet hull.

But in the seconds it took to gain a vantage, the Force-signature in her mind vanished, as if a glowrod had simply winked off.

Fog drifted up and around her, thickening to a dense, soupy gray. The only light came from illumination banks set in regular intervals all along the port's wide docking bays, reduced to pinpricks in the haze. Ahsoka waited, tilting her montrals and attempting to dispel the odd, cottony effect fog had on her senses; too much like swimming through the dark, murky waters of Mon Cala's lower seabeds.

The Force itself still eddied and lurched through her mind without any consistency, as it had from the moment Commander Fox had removed the Force-block binders from her wrists in the tribunal chamber. She probably should've spent the last five hours meditating, rather than digging through Fives' bizarre collection of manifests and floorplans, but she figured time was now a little bit more on her side. At least the GAR didn't have a warrant out for her head.

But to actively seek with the Force again, like she'd attempted to do down in the Undercity…

It was one thing to move things around; manipulating the physical had come surprisingly easy to her, even as an Initiate. Sifting through the mental, the emotional—_that_ had always been a trial. Over the last two years—despite all of Anakin's training—it only seemed to get harder, like the war itself was muddying the entire mental landscape of the galaxy.

_Well, here goes nothing._

But to Ahsoka's surprise, the Force moved out from her with only a crackle of protest, as if eager to reassert itself in her mind. It sensed and sought with a clarity that was almost alarming—although why the Force hadn't been quite so forthcoming when she'd been searching for the truth…

_Maybe I just didn't want to see it._

Ahsoka shoved _those_ particular ramifications off to the side and focused on the _now_.

There was someone sleeping inside the ship she'd alighted on—male, elderly, with the hazy mind of someone who liked their spice too much; further away, past two old, empty transports that she could just make out with her montrals, she felt the impression of several other minds, all ensconced in a mid-tier yacht. Also sleeping. No one else seemed inclined to walk the docks; not at this time in the morning.

She _had _felt that presence: a Force-sensitive's mind was unmistakable, regardless of species; bright blooms of color against a mercurial tapestry. Not always easy to track down, but still vivid enough to draw the eye.

But whatever she'd sensed had vanished, as nebulous as the fog around her.

With a soft huff of frustration, Ahsoka pushed away and dropped back down to the permacrete.

Five minutes later—once she'd descended from the port into the glow-rod lit and fog-free depths of a hovertrain station—she felt it again, winking in and out like a bad holoprojector. And then again, when she'd passed the hovertrain by and slipped past the sleep-glazed eyes of early-morning commuters, then down a slideramp into an enclosed shopping arcade, already alight for the morning. Small tapcafs were open and slowly filling with their share of commuter traffic, each jogging for position at breakfast cafs and delicatessens. It was the normal world, everything so far removed from both the Temple and the GAR that it could've been another galaxy. It was also as temptingly benign as the rows and rows of glazed pastries displayed behind the transparisteel windows.

_Those_ were enough to make her mouth water—and for a second, she forgot the odd presence firing like a wistie on and off around her.

"Well," she said, "if they want to chat, they can find me over breakfast."

Funny enough, that's exactly how it happened.

* * *

"What, no rest for the wicked?"

Not surprisingly, Coric found Rex in the captain's base office, head bent over two datapads and likely comparing either the manifests or scheduled troop transports for the joint campaign between the 501st and the 330th. As Rex had said, the official channels had been satisfied and Coric had even seen the 330th's new secondary general in the main medbay. She was a shade of green reminiscent of unripe muja fruit, almost dull against the vibrant red of her sister. Both Jedi had head-tresses that flowed in elegant waves as they walked with Commander Doom, apparently discussing the 330th's recent losses and necessary replacements.

"Thought that was for the weary." Without glancing up, Rex pulled another datapad from a pile and handed it to Coric. The medic didn't bother reading it; he recognized the 330th's emblem and medical insignia, and as he'd just spent the morning reviewing both legions' current medical capacities and scheduled supply ships, he likely knew the contents well enough to rattle them off without a peek. Ringo Vinda was expected to be a long campaign; the medical bays were prepping for the worst.

"Speaking of weary…" Coric trailed off, setting the 'pad down close to the edge of the desk and taking a seat in one of two chairs set in front. When the captain glanced up, it only took a moment for Rex to sigh and drop both datapads to the desk.

"Don't start, Coric."

The medic waved him off. "Not _you_." Although he doubted the captain had slept since Ahsoka's send-off, he wasn't going to lecture. Coric leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and rub his hands together, wondering exactly how to phrase this. "We're designed to handle every stress this war can throw at us, Rex. But some marks are being left and showing enough signs that I'm starting to get concerned."

The captain's eyes narrowed. "Is this about Kix?"

"In part, yes."

There was an irritable shake of his superior's blond head. "He picked a hell of a time to get his briefs in a wad."

Coric snorted but pressed on regardless. "It hit too close, Rex. Did you read up on the men killed down there?"

The captain rubbed one hand at the stubble on his chin, then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes."

"Kix trained under Pol." The loss of one of their best triage _clone—_as opposed to one of the enlisted—medic-trainers had been a hard blow; Coric had genuinely liked Pol and had celebrated his permanent transfer to the ArmyMed facility just last month. It had been a frankly surreal experience; kitted clones rubbing elbows with the wide-eyed, admiring—and jewel-draped—Coruscanti public. The whole thing had been held at a swanky restaurant that jutted out from the dizzying heights of a spacescraper, all of which was hosted by Pol's self-proclaimed patron—a bizarre story in itself, which the patron repeated to varying degrees of accuracy as the night wore on.

At the time, Coric had been amused by Coruscant's high society and their sudden interest in clone armor and clone hairstyles and clone ways, and although they all seemed to think of his brothers as more decorative than functional, none of the troopers had minded the attention. But watching Pol at work among them had been an interesting study; he had wielded his personality with all the finesse of a laser scalpel and the glitterati had lapped it up.

It meant nothing in the end. Pol had just been another body for the base's recyclers.

Why Pol had even been down in the prison sector that night was a question that couldn't be answered, and news of his death had hit like a blow to the solar plexus. Life wasn't promised to any of them—they were _created_ to die for the Republic, after all—but to die in what was arguably one of the most secure places in the entire galaxy…

It was both an irony and a seeping wound.

But Kix, in particular, was taking it too hard.

Rex seemed to agree. "Coric, you know that doesn't excuse his behavior."

"No. But it also doesn't negate those recordings," Coric pressed. "Can't you find _any_thing—" Rex held up a hand, then quickly twisted it to the flat signal for 'silence'. When Coric peered at him, puzzled, the captain only shook his head. There was a particular glint to the man's eye that Coric recognized, and with a frustrated sigh, the medic changed tactics. "How often are the nightmares?"

It was Rex's turn to be thrown. "What?"

Coric almost laughed at the expression on his superior's face; he was as wide-eyed as a startled tooka cat. It also answered a growing suspicion. "I spend a lot of time measuring brain waves. It's pretty essential during a dip in bacta, and we're all similar enough that there's not a lot of deviance." Rex grunted acknowledgement of that; the captain knew at least the rudimentary logistics of the medbay's practices. "Over the last year, I noticed the REM patterns getting thrown off in most every trooper that came through the bay."

"Basic, Coric."

"REM—dream sleep." He felt the corners of his mouth hitch up. "It's just a part of a humanoid sleep cycle, but still pretty essential for mental and physiological recovery. If they'd wanted something that could keep going without real sleep for days, they should've cloned some—"

"Coric," the captain said, holding up a hand. "Past...the sleeping bit, what are you getting at?"

"From what I can pull from most medical, non-military texts, nightmares don't generally affect REM sleep or the sleeper; it's just an aspect of it, normal as regular dreaming."

Rex waved him on when Coric hesitated. "Yet…"

"This is where I start guessing. Going off what I've observed of troopers in the bacta tanks, their sleep-cycle is interrupted around the halfway point—_mentally_—of the REM stage."

Rex caught the emphasis. His eyes narrowed and his arms crossed over his chest. "And that's significant, _how_?"

"It's one thing to have your sleep interrupted by some outside source. But for the brain to regularly stimulate _itself_ out of a normal and necessary function?" Coric scrubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. It was unacceptably abnormal; focus wasn't an option on the battlefield. "It's not a good sign."

Rex studied him for a moment, his gaze thoughtful. "And how does this relate to Kix?"

Again, Coric hesitated. His hunches were usually correct, but he doubted Kix would be at all amenable to this kind of request—and he didn't particularly want to make it an order. "I'd like to see if this carries on in someone who isn't or even _hasn't_ been in a bacta tank."

"You're the medic, Coric. _You_ make that call."

"But only with your approval. Tell me, Captain." Again, Coric leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You _have_ had nightmares, right?"

The play of muscles along Rex's jaw was answer enough.

Coric took a calculated risk. "And they started after Umbara, right?" Again, the captain's silence was telling—although Coric nearly rolled his eyes at his brother's obstinacy. _Straight answer. It isn't hard. _"Right," the medic answered for him. He rose from his seat and started for the door, sliding the datapad from the desk as he went.

He'd actually made it halfway over the threshold before Rex spoke.

"Kix volunteered for that duty; he knew what was being asked of him—they all did." The captain blew out a frustrated sigh. "If it hadn't been those four, Fives' speech might not've had the same effect."

Coric didn't turn. He _couldn't_ turn, but he needed to say it. It had been a year—it still needed to be said. "You had him line up to shoot his best mate, Rex." He glanced down at the datapad; rows and rows of neat, accessible data, nothing at all like the messy, bloody chaos of a man's chest blown open by flying shrapnel—but still nothing like the hell of mopping up after the treason on Umbara. Coric had been in bacta from the initial assault, and it had fallen on Kix's shoulders to coordinate all of Torrent's squad medics during a fight that saw casualty numbers rocket to atmospheric heights—and yet Rex had still apparently offered Kix the choice of shooting his best friend and brother.

Coric would never forget Kix's haunted gaze when he'd reported to him, immediately after Coric had been lifted out of the tank; his brother's brush with a fallen Jedi had left scars worse than a lightsaber's burn. "Voluntary or not, you can't _not _have nightmares about that."

The door slid shut on the captain's silence.

* * *

"_Flat blue half-top caf, up!"_

"_Dry shot froth-caf!"_

Ahsoka was almost certain she hadn't seen the inside of a specialty tapcaf for more than twenty minutes in her entire life. After devouring two loop pastries, she'd sat at one of the back tables and watched the parade of morning commuters, all the while listening to an unending list of the ways caf could be frothed, folded, made, and unmade. It was...odd, how much civilians liked their caf. But then, she knew better than to try to speak to Admiral Yularen before he'd had at least two cups every rotation.

The place smelled delicious—of steamed blue milk and caf and the heady scent of baking pastries—and there was a constant flow of customers and conversation, all borne along at a lulling murmur that was somehow just as soothing to her mind as a few hours of meditation. Granted, it'd been hours and hours after her final verdict, and fatigue was finally settling in her muscles and itching at the back of her eyes. But some inexplicable hunch made her wait.

Finally, two hours after she'd walked into the tapcaf, a bloom of Force-awareness brushed against her mind.

"Wondered if you were going to join me," she said, without glancing up from the holonews tablet that she'd borrowed from a barista just ten minutes before, as she'd snagged her third loop pastry and slowly nibbled it down to crumbs. She wondered if it was normal that the final verdict on her trial had been shunted down to the lower dregs of the news; not even twelve hours after the fact and all she could find was a small blip, and not even a mention of Barriss as the real traitor.

Long, furred fingers, tipped with stubbed claws, tapped the duraplast table. She waited until he sat.

Ahsoka flicked her thumb over the tablet's controls; the low holoimage faded into the flat gray of the screen. "Is there a reason you've been following me?"

Her visitor didn't answer, and when she looked up, she nearly flinched.

A black-furred Nalroni, heavily scarred along the left side of his face and narrow, graying muzzle, hunched in the seat across from her, looking as out of place in the specialty tapcaf as if Hondo and his pirates had plopped down for a chat. A ragged robe was draped over his shoulders and she caught the distinct smell of the Undercity off him. Underneath the robe were, unmistakably, the standard brown wraps of a Jedi: threadbare, old, but well-fitted to the canid's lean frame. And of course, just visible at his waist, hung the hilt of a saberstaff.

As if the firm press of his mind against hers left any doubt.

He met her regard with a flat, calculating stare. By instinct alone, her hands jumped to the lightsabers at her waist. Black eyes followed that movement and settled on the two silver hilts. "You are no longer Jedi."

_Sithspit_. _That didn't take long._ "...No."

"Yet the Council has allowed you to keep your lightsabers. An unusual departure from tradition."

Ahsoka stared at him. "Ah. Seems so," she hedged. As far as she knew, there weren't any Nalroni Jedi currently in the Order. Granted, she hadn't kept up with all the thousands of Jedi, but the Nalroni as a species were rare enough that she was pretty sure she'd remember even a mention of one. "And who exactly are you?"

Again with the silence. A bubble of unease wormed its way up into her chest. Then— "You make no attempt to hide your feelings or your intent," he said. He could've been discussing the non-weather on Coruscant, for all the inflection he put in his rough voice. "That is a foolish mistake. For one who is considered a war hero, I expected some attempt at subtlety."

"_Excuse_ me?"

The Nalroni leaned forward, close enough that the stink of the Undercity washed over her. "Interesting that you would come so close to a conviction. And yet, at the very last moment, your Master reveals the true mastermind."

"If you watched the trial, you know how ridiculous it was."

"Yes. But your Master's timing was impeccable."

"Trust me, it always is."

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps _what_?" she shot back. "It happened. It's over. And does it really matter? Full confession." Ahsoka irritably crumpled up the napkin and made to slide out of her chair.

"Perhaps it matters who _you_ believe did it."

Ahsoka hesitated. It hit close enough to the truth that—after a moment—she settled back into her seat, hands folded on top of the table. One of his ears twitched; she wondered if that was his version of a smile.

Or maybe he just had fleas.

"I've lived most of my life in the Temple," she said. "Why have I never seen you before?"

His response was easy and unexpected. "I'm an underworld operative."

"And you just announced that in a public tapcaf." Ahsoka shot a pointed look around the cafe. "Right."

"These types care little about the sentients around them, let alone the creatures a hundred levels below or a star system away."

Ahsoka glanced at the closest table; true to form, it was a Rodian businessman caught up in a rapid-fire conversation with the wildly gesticulating holo of a Twi'lek spacer.

Still... "That doesn't mean no one is listening."

"You have your specific talents, Miss Tano. I have mine."

Ahsoka swung her attention back on the Nalroni; he was so oddly intense that part of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, and another part wanted to just walk away and get a good few hours' sleep.

But all the little leftover pieces of the last few days hung at the back of her mind, twisting with every thought, restless as an anooba. And after Fives' chunk of non-information, she'd take any lead. "Alright. Fine. I'm listening."

"I have reason to believe there is a threat to the Jedi Order currently on Coruscant."

Ahsoka tilted her montrals toward where she knew the Temple rose, a blunt, imposing fortress of solitude against the rest of Coruscant. "There's a few hundred of them every day on the main steps, you know."

The Nalroni sniffed, nostrils fluttering with the action. "The protesters are nothing but an inconvenience."

_Especially when they've got an inside person to push their ideas_.

"Exactly," the canid said.

Ahsoka jolted in surprise, then narrowed her eyes at the figure across from her. "Stay out of my head."

"Control your thoughts."

"I'm not a Jedi."

He leaned even further forward, bringing with him the stench of acrid old oil and burned things. "We have an Order for a reason—and that is to teach one such as you to _control_ your abilities. You are strong. Too strong to simply wander the pedwalks of Coruscant and not expect either enemies or exploiters to find you."

"And that's why they sent you?" She could only assume as much; Master Kenobi had offered her a gift, blessed as such by the Council—but apparently tagged with a condition and a very strange mission. Her jaw clenched in renewed irritation. She didn't need a babysitter, especially one as crazy as this guy.

"No."

"No, they didn't send you?"

"My orders are extremely specific," he replied, nose twitching as if bothered by that fact. "And I believe you can assist me."

Ahsoka tried not to roll her eyes. "I really doubt that."

Without a change of expression—really, he had the personality of a castrated bantha—he retrieved a holoemitter from beneath his robe and placed it on the table. With a casual wave of his hand, a flickering blue figure rose and rotated slowly. "Tell me what you know of this masc."

But Ahsoka's confusion spiked to new levels. The figure was a clone trooper, washed in blue light but utterly unmistakable. She'd served beside him for long enough, after all.

Although why a self-proclaimed underworld operative would have any interest in _him_ was a bizarre enough puzzle to throw her out into the Rishi Maze.

"What, in all that's Force-saken, would you want to know about _Tup_?"

* * *

**A/N**: Many thanks to **impoeia** for her beta'ing! If you haven't checked out her stories, do yourself a weekend treat and read them.

Happy Halloween, all!

It wasn't my intention for a certain character to be introduced on All Hallows' Eve, but I do love that it worked out that way.


	12. Chapter 11

"Visions, they are. Underestimate them, you must not."

—Grand Master Yoda

* * *

"I require information on this clone's habits. Personality. Tendencies. Patterns of behavior, in battle and out."

The Nalroni rattled off his request with droid-like efficiency and Ahsoka could only stare.

"You're a Jedi. Access his records."

"His records are clean. Impressively so."

She narrowed her eyes. _Too vague_. "Name his last five missions."

"From most recent, Cato Neimoidia, Kamino, Omwat, Ixtlar, Alderaan. Missed Jungar due to a stint in bacta. Took a blast meant for you on Omwat. Received a commendation for the trouble." His ears twitched. "You were apparently distracted...lifting a wall."

Off of Anakin. Again. Omwat had been one of the few urban battles the 501st had recently engaged in; the casualty count—both for the 501st and the civilian populace—had been gruesomely high, and Anakin had nearly killed himself wielding the Force like a living energy shield, protecting and covering all he could.

"Designation, CT-5385," the canid went on. "Recruited straight from Kamino into Torrent Company. First saw action at Umbara. Has served with relative distinction since."

"He's a good soldier."

"Then you should have no problem discussing this unit's personality."

"I have _every_ problem discussing his personality. It's none of your business."

The holo-image in front of Ahsoka was, unmistakably, from last night at 79s: Tup sat straddling a chair, a look of amicable humor on his face as he glanced over his shoulder at something, his topknot loose enough that she figured he'd had more than a few drinks by that point. From the looks of it, the image had been taken at her table, either while she'd been wolfing down daro root fries or after she'd nodded off on Rex's shoulder. She could also tell this was not a cut from a security cam; there was a clear-edged definition to the holo that spoke of a handheld imager, rather than a cam. Which meant that this…Jedi had been there, and she hadn't sensed him. At all.

After a minute of obstinate silence, the Nalroni leaned forward. "I have _seen_ this clone's future—"

"You sure it's him?" Ahsoka had to ask, waspishly. "He _is_ a clone."

"—and this particular unit will show an unacceptable deviance."

"For one, they're _men_. He's a _man_, not a unit."

"That's debatable."

"Ah—_no,_ it's not."

"They are a _bred_ army."

"They are _good men_!" No Jedi _she_ knew would ever simply dismiss a clone as a unit; they had all worked with clones, fought with clones at their backs, _knew_ them as individuals—even from the heights of command. "And two, I've never seen you before. _Ever_. No operative is so deep that he never visits the Temple. Explain that."

"You've limited your studies."

"I was one of the best students in my clan, thanks for asking." Ahsoka crossed her arms over her chest. "You didn't answer me."

"And I won't. Visit Master Vilbum if you have your doubts."

The Caretaker of First Knowledge, a great, leathery beast of a Baragwin she had steered clear of during her entire youth. _Right_.

As if she would be stepping foot back inside the Temple anytime soon.

Her fingers tapped a tattoo against her bracers. Ahsoka didn't shift her focus from the Nalroni across from her, but still took note that not a single civilian even glanced their way, despite the oddity of a robed—and distinctly ragged—Jedi sitting in their midst. All were intent on gathering up their morning caf and goodies and hurrying on their way. By the chrono, it was still only 9am; early enough that late commuters were rushing through and the sound of sentients shuffling along in lines and barking into their comms would've drowned out the canid's rough—but quiet—voice if Ahsoka hadn't _felt_ his words through her montrals.

"So," Ahsoka finally said, "what exactly do you define as an 'unacceptable deviance'?"

"I have _seen _this clone—"

Ahsoka glanced at the emitter. "Obviously."

He blew a breath out in a very canine huff. "A day ago, you called yourself a Jedi. I doubt much has changed in your bloodstream since then." He tapped the holoemitter with one blunt claw. "But more importantly, I have _seen_ a Jedi die at this clone's hand. And I require information about this unit so that I may take appropriate action."

"Woah, woah, woah_." _Ahsoka held up a hand and half-rose out of her seat. "You just said he _will _show an unacceptable deviance and now you're saying he's already _killed_ someone?"

"It is not a present action."

Ahsoka fought the urge to throw the emitter somewhere. Possibly at the Nalroni's head. "A vision."

"Yes."

"And he just...kills a Jedi. For no reason."

"Yes. An ordered execution."

"Yes to what?"

"They are one and the same."

It was becoming harder not to gape like an overheated nuna. "You realize how ridiculous you sound?"

"Many Jedi throughout history were scorned or exiled for their visions. It is well-documented."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Well, can't argue there."

His ear twitched. "Will you provide information on this...man?"

Ahsoka clenched her jaw, but still couldn't seem to keep herself from saying, "The clones are good men. Loyal men. The only Jedi they've fired on was either a true traitor or one they _thought_ was a traitor." It was odd to defend their actions from that night; just the memory made her skin itch. She could still _feel_ the too close brush of hot plasma. "Even if what you're saying is true, Tup wouldn't act without good reason."

By all the Corellian hells, Tup hadn't even killed Pong Krell when the Master had been _actively _treasonous. She'd read the reports and saw the holo footage; the rookie clone had simply stood there—passive bait—as Master Krell charged.

The Nalroni's eyes glittered in the tapcaf's warm light. "You know as well as I that the image," he tapped his skull with one claw, "once seen, will not rest. I have _seen_ him kill a Jedi."

Yes, she _did_ know; there was no forgetting the image of Padmé falling to Aurra Sing's shot, nor the tenacity of those dreams. Yet— "Then that Jedi wasn't really a Jedi. If you've served with these men, you'd know—"

"What you believe you know isn't always the truth."

His words shook loose a memory and it took her a moment to place where she'd heard them before. _Rex. Yesterday_.

"Stay away from them and let them do their duty," Ahsoka heard herself say, swallowing back the unexpected lurch of emotion that hit with her own words—to admit it, herself, out loud. "That's all they want."

Rex had made that clear over the past year. No matter his own thoughts, no matter the emotions she'd felt rolling off of him—warm as the heat from a hearth fire—he would fulfil his duty to his dying breath.

Anakin was the same way. And she wasn't there to—

_No_._ Don't start, Ahsoka,_ she reminded herself firmly. This wasn't about Anakin or Rex or...

"And that's all that needs to be said," she finished. She couldn't drag her eyes off the rotating figure of Tup and the tear-mark tattoo beneath his eye.

"Is it." It wasn't a question. He said the words delicately, with a pull of his lips up across his muzzle in a very canine sneer. "Tell me, what do you know of the clones' creation?"

"Enough."

"Then you assume all is a convenient truth."

"Taking after you, apparently."

Again with the ear twitch. At least _he_ found this situation somewhat amusing. "To look away from a possible half-truth is not the Jedi way."

"I'm not a Jedi," she snapped. Really, was the concept _that_ hard to grasp? "And to deny other established facts isn't really a Jedi thing, either." Not that either supposed 'Jedi trait' had been upheld during Ahsoka's first trial in the Chamber of Judgment. _Irony_ _after_ _irony_, she figured.

"It is essential to understand both the past and the present," he pressed, "to fully comprehend the possibilities of the future."

"Are we discussing our Initiate studies now? Want me to dig out a holocron, too?" she shot back. "The future is always in motion. Or did you miss that lesson with Master Yoda?" Ahsoka felt a headache coming on that had everything to do with the mental whiplash of the current conversation. The Nalroni's jumps in logic were about as cohesive as a droid and a trooper sitting down to a friendly game of sabacc—yet for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to simply stand and walk away.

"The same Master Yoda who allowed for your expulsion from the Order?" She leaned forward to throw back a reply, but he quickly added, "The High Council's distinct lack of clarity has been observed for far longer than this war has spanned our galaxy."

Now _that_ was going too far. For all her disappointment in the Council, for all that she wondered how everything could go so wrong, so fast—

"This war isn't their fault—"

"Again, fallacy. It _is _a Jedi's fault. Or should I say, one who _was_ a Jedi."

Of course. Dooku. But—"You can't blame all of the Jedi for the fall of one."

The flat black of his eyes somehow sharpened. "Similar situation, yes?"

What was he after? None of his statements linked up in any cohesive way…but then it clicked. "Don't you _dare_ compare me to a Sith," Ahsoka snapped, jerking to her feet, voice shaking in sudden fury. "I am _not_ a Dark Jedi—I just wanted _away_—"

"I tender no thoughts that you have fallen to the dark."

Ahsoka shook her head, utterly nonplussed. "Then what does Dooku have to do with anything you're saying?" Her head spun at the shifting datastrands of his arguments.

"Dooku? Everything," the Nalroni replied. He gestured for her to sit; she ignored him. "For the moment? Nothing."

Her fingers twitched and her lightsabers seemed suddenly too far away, even at her waist. "Name. Now."

"Xyre."

She re-folded her arms even tighter in front of her, gripping her bracers hard enough the leather creaked. "You need to state _exactly _why you have followed me and what _exactly_ your business is, before I trim that fur of yours."

"You walked away from the Order for a specific reason, yet I doubt there is any clarity in your _own_ path, going forward."

The smug tilt to his muzzle only irritated her further. "Keep talking. Your lack of an actual answer is doing you _really_ well."

"Then why are you still here? No," he went on before she could respond. "You understand my meaning perfectly. You and I—we are both hunters."

"You don't know nearly as much as you think you do." With a flick of her finger, Ahsoka deactivated the holoemitter. The image of Tup gave a half-hearted fizzle, then winked out. She leaned over the emitter and into the Nalroni's space, hands braced on the tabletop. The stench of the Undercity prickled against her eyes and seeped into her senses, as oily as his previous words. "Tup wouldn't do that. Whatever you _think_ you saw, it's not what it seems. And why don't you just go to this...this Jedi? Or is that identity conveniently unknown?"

"No, not unknown. However, approaching the Jedi in question would not be possible."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes again. _Of course._ "And why not?"

"The High Council is quite particular about this Jedi. He is, after all, considered the Chosen One."

* * *

"_Fek_, no."

"You don't really have a choice in the matter, Kix."

"You have absolutely no reason to put any kind of monitor on me."

"I do, actually."

Kix gaped at him. "It was just too many kriffing drinks! We've all been there—fek, _you've_ been there, and I've helped haul your sorry _shebs _back to base—"

"That's not why, Kix, and you know it."

"_Then tell me why_!" the younger medic exploded, wrenching himself up off the examination bed to throw the words in Coric's face.

Coric's hand slapped over Kix's shoulder and forced him back down onto the bed. "That right there is one reason. You didn't used to bite everyone's head off, Kix."

"I don't—"

Coric's held up a small device—square, slender, and riddled with small sensor patches and electronics—and let it flash in the stark white light of the medbay. "Two, you show up here at oh-nine-hundred—two hours before you had to—with what has to be a headache the size of Bespin. So," Coric reached for one other item and held up both—a water bottle and the sensor patch—to Kix's disgruntled grumble, "hydrate. And then you endure this tiny, insignificant patch for a week. And _then_, you can resume your winning streak at sabaac."

Another string of curses followed—muted to a low mumble, at least—but Kix took the water bottle. "I get that I was an ass. But _why—_"

Coric stopped him with another heavy hand on the younger man's shoulder. "It's not about that, Kix, or the drinking." He sighed and shifted closer, studying Kix with a critical eye. It never ceased to amaze him that his fellow medics could be so undividedly obstinate about their own health, or even their own perceived limits. "It's not even what you said to Ahsoka—"

"Because it was deserved, and no one else had the balls to say it."

Coric narrowed his eyes, letting his silence speak for a long moment. "If you really think that," he finally said, "you never really knew her."

"I thought I _did_ know her. I _trusted_ her."

"Then you need to think over the last three days. Really. Think." Coric emphasized his words with a tap of his fingers, and Kix eyed him with something akin to suspicion. "Now," the lieutenant went on, gesturing at the water bottle and for Kix to slide forward to sit at the end of the bed. "Hangovers don't rate pain meds, but drink up."

"You never answered me," Kix noted after several minutes of silence, as Coric affixed the patch to the back of Kix's neck and aligned the sensors to the datapad he'd picked up from the bed's medical sidestand.

It took Coric several more minutes to answer; the medi-pad blipped with a small line of Aurebesh and a litany of readings flooded first into a set column, then diverted into the rows of data samples he had from Kix's last five physicals.

"Tell me about your nightmares."

* * *

"Ahsoka!"

Padmé's exclamation—and the outright relief in her voice—washed over Ahsoka and wrapped her in a warmth that not even the tapcaf had offered. Ahsoka's response, however, was reduced to a lame, "Hey," and a watery smile in return.

The senator was still in her morning dress—casual finery, all in varying shades of sunlit yellow, with her dark hair tucked into a simple bun—and she buried Ahsoka in a tight hug the moment C-3PO escorted Ahsoka into her sitting room, bright with early morning light.

"I was worried that you wouldn't come see me. Where have you been?" There was a tinge of censure in Padmé's voice that warmed Ahsoka even further. Padmé, for all that she was a force to be reckoned with on a galactic scale, was also the kindest, most sincerely caring soul Ahsoka had ever encountered.

It was one of the many reasons that she was glad to feel the _imprint_ of Anakin on Padmé's unique Force signature—strongly enough this morning that Ahsoka knew Anakin had to have been with Padmé just hours before. Her Master and the senator might've thought their relationship was wholly secret, yet there was no mistaking that particular, gold-bright bond between the two.

At least, to anyone who spent any time around the two of them.

"Master Kenobi offered me a ship."

Padmé's surprise was genuine, although the strain tightening the skin around her eyes eased immediately and she ushered Ahsoka to a settee. "That is certainly something I could imagine Master Kenobi doing," the senator said, pouring tea into two filigree-etched cups. The heady scent of Naboo spices eased the ache in Ahsoka's montrals as she wrapped her hands around the little cup and let Padmé add a touch of pale blue cream and sugar. "And I'm also certainly glad that you'll have more options."

Ahsoka felt a tug of humor at Padmé's words. She sounded disappointed. "You really wanted me around the Senate District that much?"

Padmé's wry smile was answer enough. "Well," she said, holding her own delicate cup to her lips and taking a moment to breathe deeply. "I had my hopes."

A laugh bubbled out of Ahsoka just a second before Padmé joined in, and in that moment, whatever strain that had been left—heavy and listless—across Ahsoka's shoulders since the trial simply...lifted off, as if Padmé's simple acceptance of Ahsoka's choice had been the one thing the ache in her chest had been waiting for.

"Thank you," she said, once Padmé's chuckle had subsided. "For everything."

Padmé shook her head and her smile was gentle and healing in itself. "I did no more than everyone else _should_ have done." Her expression darkened just enough to shadow the bright brown of her eyes. "I'm so sorry that it had to be this way."

"Me too."

And she was. She also didn't want to put Padmé in an awkward position by keeping too close a connection; Anakin would need space to reconcile Ahsoka's decision.

She just wasn't sure how long that would take.

"You're more than welcome on Naboo," Padmé was saying, selecting a sweet-sand cookie from the small spread set beside the tea. "My family would welcome you with open arms. I'll admit I've already mentioned you to my sister, and she and her family are eager to host you, if you're so inclined. Although I'll warn you," she added with a small smile, "Ryoo—my eldest niece—has taken far more interest in court recently and will ask you for everything you might possibly know about Coruscant."

"I appreciate the offer, Padmé." Ahsoka hesitated; she would need to edge close to the truth, but subterfuge of _any_ kind—especially toward Padmé—chafed against every one of her instincts. It didn't help matters that the Force seemed almost stubbornly vague about everything the Nalroni had said, yet still pushed forward toward _something_. "I...actually have a favor to ask."

The cup of tea had been held close at the senator's lips and she eyed Ahsoka carefully before taking a thoughtful sip. "I admit that I haven't yet asked anyone about Ventress."

Ahsoka barely caught herself from wincing. She'd nearly forgotten the _other_ favor she had asked of Padmé, just yesterday. _Not even twenty-four hours and I'm already blasting apart my skybridges._

Padmé took a moment to settle her cup to its saucer with a light _clink_. "I'm not sure yet how to phrase that request toward anyone else in the Senate. Even Bail would probably think I'm chasing wild yunax." She grimaced at her own words. "I'm sorry, Ahsoka. That was unkind. I _will_ make the requests."

"Ah, actually, this is a different favor. Not about Ventress."

Padmé blinked. "Oh?"

"It has to do with the Refugee Relief Movement."

Padmé brightened in an instant, as if the sun had decided to shine its full glory directly onto the petite senator. "Oh, Ahsoka! That's wonderful!"

A spike of guilt was hidden behind a gulp of tea—which Ahsoka then nearly choked on. Thankfully, Padmé didn't seem to notice. "The movement would be more than happy to have someone of your unique skills and qualifications to help guide their efforts. They suffered a severe blow when the Jedi withdrew the Agricorps' assistance."

Ahsoka vaguely remembered that; a quick line in a report sent out by the High Council. It was an interesting side-effect of Onderan's success in repelling the Separatists by home-grown Republic sympathizers, and the Agricorps had been recruited into assisting at a somewhat more covert level. Ahsoka hadn't quite been able to push aside the guilt felt whenever she came across another mention of an Agricorps member, meant for the peaceful rebuilding of tragedy-stricken communities, now dead at Separatist hands.

It was one thing to expect a full Jedi—even a Padawan—to fight their way out of an inherently violent situation; no one in the Agricorps would have a chance.

"Well, I'd like to help as much as I can," Ahsoka said, swallowing against the urge to cough. "I know there isn't much that one person can do, but I didn't really want to just leave the war behind."

At Padmé's approving nod, Ahsoka felt relief spread through the tension that had tightened in her gut. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Ahsoka," the senator said. "You are—and always will be—a formidable woman."

"I don't know about _that_, but I'm not going to forget the last few days." Ahsoka took a breath as she placed her teacup aside. "There's a lot I need to understand, but I want to do _something_ while I'm looking."

It was close enough to the truth that the words came easily.

"Well, in that case," Padmé went on, shifting an inch and somehow sitting up even straighter, an instantaneous change from casual companionship to the essence of senatorial business. "The people of Qiilura, of course, have been and continue to be a sensitive issue. The Refugee Movement has been focusing on evacuating the remaining Human colonists, but they've encountered stiff resistance. There are also rebuilding efforts on Omwat and Christophsis after the latest attack and they could certainly use someone who is accustomed to both command and civilian ways, and who can easily cut through the bureaucratic red flimsitape-"

"Actually, Padmé," Ahsoka interrupted, holding up her hand. "I already had a mission in mind. I think some evacuation efforts are already in place there, but I will need your...good word."

Without missing a beat, Padmé tilted her chin to one side and said, with no change in inflection, "Ringo Vinda."

Ahsoka tried to smile. "Right in one."

Padmé's gaze was appraising. "I believe the 501st is headed there soon."

Well. Two could play _that_ information game, although she'd rather trade secrets _with_ Padmé, than dance around who should know what about the GAR's military movements. "Tomorrow morning. And at the latest briefing, they were still trying to move as many civilians off the station as possible before the battle."

Which had made the whole thing smell like a trap to her, and she'd said as much at the last war council she'd attended—the Separatists had had no problem using civilians as living shields before—but Tarkin had insisted the battle strategy move forward as planned.

"I doubt the majority of civilians were moved off the station, Ahsoka."

Ahsoka furrowed her brow. "Going by our intel, it was a concerted effort."

Padmé's sigh was small, but spoke volumes. "Ringo Vinda has become an extremely popular gambling hub over the last year. I'm sure plenty of other things—sentient or not—are bought, sold, traded, or won there. I'm also sure that most of the evacuees were shipped out at the pleasure and insistence of the station's newest tenants."

Facts that weren't mentioned _at all_ in the briefing. "That was _not_ the case mentioned in the war council." Something hot and prickly simmered in her chest. Was _everything_ something else on someone else's agenda? "How do you know this?"

"The war has always been a tangled web, Ahsoka," Padmé said, sympathetic but matter-of-fact. "Every day, every _hour_ spins another strand." Her brows knit together for a moment. "I've learned to listen far more than I speak while I walk the Senate hallways."

Ahsoka took a deep breath and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. She would need to just lay it out. "Padmé, I need to be on that station in some sort of official capacity."

Padmé studied her for a moment. "You need to give him space, Ahsoka, if he is ever going to accept that you both can move forward."

"I know, but—"

"No, Ahsoka. If you made your choice—"

"He's in danger." Ahsoka pushed the words out in one rush of air.

Padmé's eyebrows slanted into a quizzical frown. "He's always in danger, Ahsoka. He _lives_ for—"

"Not like that, Padmé. Remember the conference on Alderaan?"

Padmé broke off with a startled, "Oh!" and leaned forward, eyes wide. "You've _seen_ this? But a bounty hunter couldn't—"

"Not a bounty hunter," Ahsoka quickly said. "I don't think I could explain, but I...have reason to believe his life is in danger in the near future." She hesitated as a sudden tendril of the Force curled in uncertainty in her stomach, but she pushed forward anyway. She'd come this far. "And if I can do anything to keep that from happening, I will."

Padmé took only a moment to decide, searching Ahsoka's face for something intangible. "Well, then. Let's make some calls."

"One other question, Padmé," she quickly added, when the senator made to rise from the sette. When Padmé lifted her eyebrows expectantly, Ahsoka sighed. "I'm not sure if I even want to know this, but does the Senate keep an outside roster of all Jedi? A list of some kind?"

There was clear interest in Padmé's sharp gaze. "Not to my knowledge." At the slump of Ahsoka's shoulders, the senator went on, "However, there are always ways of learning certain unknowns. Come," she said, rising and abandoning her half-empty teacup. "We have a great deal to do."

* * *

The _Resolute_'s sublight engines—rumbling with the standard preps and tests prior to shipping out—thrummed through the deck plates and vibrated with familiar intensity through the soles of Rex's boots. It was a song he'd long grown accustomed to, comfortable as the curves and weight of his armor or the kickback of his deeces. Despite the delays and the 330th's sudden restructuring, Rex had sought out the _Resolute _as soon as was feasible, even as his company had scattered to the deepening Coruscant evening: a bloody red beneath a layer of filmy clouds that wreathed the highest spacescrapers.

Oh-nine-hundred was lockdown, and his men would make the most of the last few hours of leave available—yet somehow he wasn't surprised to find Fives sprawled in Rex's shipside office chair, boots on the desk and a pad in hand.

"What's the occasion?" Rex gave a casual shove at Fives' boots, which the ARC just as casually swung down to the floor as he sat up and handed Rex the datapad. Fives occupying the _Resolute_'s halls during any hour of leave-time meant either one of two things. "Did you lose your lady to an officer?"

Fives snorted and pointedly ignored Rex's jibe. "Latest intel from RI, fresh outta Zey's net. I would've given it to the general himself, but he's still MIA."

Rex fought back a sigh. _And he probably _will_ be, 'til we break dock._

"Oh, and I debugged your office. It's clean and we can talk freely."

_And that. Of course_.

"You debugged my office," Rex repeated, deadpan.

"'S what I said, eh?"

"Do I want to know how many bugs were in here?"

"Probably not."

Rex did sigh then, propping one hip on the edge of his desk and folding his arms across his chest. Fives leaned further back in the captain's office chair, altogether at ease—as he always was—in flaunting authority. This was obviously going to be Option Two. "What did you give her?"

The practiced look of complete innocence looked wholly ridiculous on Fives' face.

"You slipped Ahsoka something, Fives."

At least it wasn't his tongue; the urge to flatten Fives' face had been relatively short-lived, at least once he'd realized Fives' little stunt outside of 79s was about as sincere as the casualty counts mentioned on the daily civilian holonews report. But the fact that Rex hadn't connected those pieces until he'd been well on his way back to base—and Ahsoka holed up in her new ship—bothered him. Just as much as _she_ couldn't slip or let her guard down, neither could he.

There was far more riding on his shoulders, now more than ever.

"Fek, you make it sound like I spiked her drink," the ARC groused.

"You probably did."

"Oh?" Fives' sudden grin was as sharp as his gaze. "Did she plant another one on you? At least one of you has some sense then—"

"You gave her something; something that made her actually accept General Kenobi's offer—and I really don't think she was going to take it, otherwise—but you need to tell me what you threw her into."

At that, Fives sat up fully. "You think I'd, what, just toss her to the vapin' dorax dogs?"

"I think you'd find something that _she_ would find interesting. I think you'd have a vague understanding of its intent or importance, and you'd send her off to figure the rest out on her own."

The ARC shrugged. "Sounds about right."

Rex fought back the urge to thump the man. "Even _you _have back-up when you're out there. Maybe not immediately, but it's out there—"

Fives held up a hand, one eyebrow ticked up in annoyance. "Ah, no, that's not how it works, and you know it."

"_Yes_, it is. If you manage to survive—"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Fives muttered.

"You have a base to go back to; unlimited resources; _everything_."

"What do you have against her, Rex? You told me yourself that none of it added up—that none of it made sense. Let her dig."

"It's not—" Rex broke off, rubbing one hand across his face, shaved smooth only hours before but still rough even beneath the thick callouses of his fingertips. "Someone wanted her dead, or at least out of the way. And I don't think it was Offee."

"Yeah, I gathered that." Fives shook his head, though, and studied Rex for a moment. "If you trust her—"

"I _do_ trust her." _Of all the _shabla osik... This was a concept none of them seemed even willing to accept. "She's not a one-person army. She doesn't _need_ to be, either."

"You think I'd just give her something if there wasn't a backup to fall to?"

Rex stared at the ARC, torn between wanting to punch the man or buy him a drink—or twenty, to actually get _all_ the facts—and settled for sitting in the chair across from his own, one boot propped against the desk's edge. "Give me the facts, Fives."

Fives snorted in disbelief. "No can do, Captain."

"Kriff it all, just tell me—"

Fives leaned forward abruptly, elbows resting on Rex's desk and face suddenly lined by the weight of far more than just two years of war. "You think I just left behind Umbara and forgot about what happened out there? Or what Krell said while he was busy cutting us all apart?"

Something icy hot prickled at the back of Rex's neck and he grit his teeth. "Please say you haven't been doing what I think you just said you're doing."

"Rex, it's not like it's treason or anything—"

"_Fekking hells, _Fives!"

"Look, networks are approved by RI." Fives spread his hands wide. "It's what I do as an ARC. You may think I'm as _shabla_-brained as a gassed Gungan, but you need to _trust me_."

Silence held between both men for a long moment, tense and taut with the pressing weight of the engines' thrum against their ears.

"Fine," Rex sighed. Against his better judgement and every instinct that just wanted her _off_ Coruscant.

For once, Fives' half-smile was sincere. "I appreciate the support, Captain."

"You don't report to me," Rex noted.

"Not officially." And as if he'd decided all was settled, he pulled a narrow bottle of clear glass and amber liquid from somewhere and plunked it on the desk, followed by two collapsible plasti-cups, easily slotted into something far more generous than shot glasses.

"Oh, for fek's sake."

"You're not going out; I'm not going out; we're drinking to good health and battles and all that _osik_."

"Do you even know what a reg manual looks like?"

Fives gave a noncommittal shrug. "I had Echo as a vat-brother. Didn't need to."

"Let me introduce it to you. Looks a lot like the bottom of my boot."

"Ha. Haha. Where'd you grow the sense of humor?" Fives turned the bottle, letting the label flash in the bland light of the overhead glowrods. "Toydarian. The good stuff."

Rex sighed, and with a shake of his head, leaned forward to pluck the bottle out of Fives' hand. "From you? Wouldn't expect any less." With a quick twist of the cap, he took the first pour, splashing a healthy amount of whiskey into what was ostensibly Fives' cup, then his own. "To brothers gone."

Fives lifted his plasti-cup to the toast. "And a sister not forgotten."

_And to the war's end_, Rex added silently, before upending his own cup. With the fire that lanced his throat, all the way down to his belly, came the thought that—just maybe—there _would_ be a future past every battlefield.

And just maybe...

His fingers clenched the thin plasti hard enough to bend and he slammed down the thought before it could take root and grow. That particular path had already been walked, and he'd fekked it up with all the finesse of battle droid tip-toeing through the starflowers.

But it wasn't long after the first downed shot that a familiar half-grin twitched at the corner of Fives' mouth. The man was utterly incapable of staying silent for longer than thirty seconds.

"Maybe that's all we really need." At Rex's furrowed brow, he went on. "Maybe instead of a one-_man_ army," Fives crooked his finger between the two of them; as alike and different as they could be, "the Republic just needs a one-_woman_ army."

"_Fives_."

Fives' grin deepened. "I don't know about _your_ stubborn _shebs_, but I'd surrender in a fekking nanosecond. Flat on my ba—"

"Out of my office. Now."

Fives, of course, ignored him, and laughing, poured another shot for them both. Rex hauled him up by the back of his pauldron, regardless, and shoved him toward the door.

"Get. Out."

Fives swung back around like a glitchy hoverball. "Oh, come on, Captain." Fives swiped the cup back when Rex nearly sent it flying, then managed to grab up the bottle, sloshing with a wet _thwick_ against the half-twisted lid. "_Fek_, Rex," he snapped, his temper showing for the first time. "Get laid if you're going to be this karking pissy at Vinda!"

"_OUT!_"


	13. Chapter 12

"This is quite exciting."

"'Exciting' isn't exactly the word I would use."

—Senators Bail Organa and Padmé Amidala

* * *

"—634, you have entered restricted airspace. Repeat, Ambassadorial Shuttle 634, this is restricted airspace. All transport in and out of Ringo Vinda Station has been suspended."

"Well, that's one way to say hello," Ahsoka muttered.

No surprise, her traveling companion had nothing to add; the Nalroni—_Xyre_—had sat in stony silence the moment he'd boarded her ship, yesterday afternoon. Apparently, he'd said his piece in the tapcaf and felt no compunction to add any further details.

Which irritated her to no end. If Anakin's _life_ was at stake, she needed information. Preferably yesterday.

Ahsoka toggled the comm. "Ringo Vinda Space Control, please acknowledge receipt of transmission. Sending authorization codes."

There was a beat of silence from the comm, punctuated only by a fizzle of static. "Acknowledged Shuttle 634. And denied."

"Space Control, would you like me to remind you of Article Four, Section Seventeen of the Alderaan Convention?" Before the voice on the other end could respond, she rattled off the words Padmé had hammered into her head the day before: "'Parties to the conflict shall endeavor to conclude local agreements for the removal from besieged or encircled areas of noncombatants'. You _will_ allow us entry under the banner of neutrality, as allowed by both the Republic and Separatist Councils, that we may assist the peaceful evacuation of Ringo Vinda's civilian population from areas of combat."

The words rolled off her tongue with relative ease. Maybe she _could_ handle the diplomacy thing.

Another beat of silence. Ahsoka waited another breath, then added, "There are still laws during combat. I am here to help the _people_ of Ringo Vinda, not any particular side of the war."

The silence continued to stretch; then—

"Acknowledged, Shuttle 634. Sending docking coordinates now."

"Thank you, Space Control. Shuttle 634, out." Ahsoka blew out a breath and collapsed back against her seat. _And that was the easy part_. She threw a sidelong glance at the gray-muzzled Nalroni. "Thanks for the assist."

"My silence was obligatory."

_Yeah. All the way here, too_. She had a hunch that bearing his company would feel a lot like talking to herself.

At least he no longer stank of the Undercity; Xyre had exchanged his old Jedi rags for non-descript—but just as threadbare—tunic and baggy leggings. The leggings and lack of a robe confirmed at least one suspicion: he had a very fluffy tail.

Regardless, it would take more than a wardrobe change to endear the canid to her good opinion; despite over two hours of a one-sided interrogation—or really, just her talking to the gimbal-read—he hadn't said another word about his Force-vision, and after a full morning and half an afternoon of research with Padmé, she'd had to assume that the Nalroni _was _a Jedi operative of some sort. To Ahsoka's surprise, the Senate did not have a list of active Jedi in their own archives. Deceased Jedi, killed in service to the Republic, yes—but not active.

Ahsoka found that...odd, although she couldn't pinpoint the reason why she felt that way.

Padmé had offered to ask Anakin to search the Temple Archives for mentions of the Nalroni—and then suggested Obi-Wan, when she'd caught a glimpse of Ahsoka's expression—but Ahsoka had turned her down with a wry twist to her lips. She would rather think of other avenues of inquiry, than to involve the two people closest to the problem.

Which would probably lead her to asking a favor from Ganodi or old Master Sinube.

_Priorities first_. She needed to know if Anakin really was in any danger...and how Tup could pose _any_ threat towards something not related to a tin can.

"_Before you leave, there's one last thing,"_ Padmé had added, then gestured to C-3PO. To Ahsoka's bemusement, the protocol droid had held up a simplistic Togrutan headdress, more cloth than adornments.

"_Padmé. I don't really think that's—_"

"_It is. Trust me_." Padmé's lips had thinned to a firm line and squelched any other arguments Ahsoka might've offered. "_You are far more recognizable than you realize_."

And then Padmé had pressed a robe—all a dark, velvety blue, same as the headdress—into her hands. Ahsoka had quickly stifled a protest; Padmé knew how to be a diplomat. If a robe and some covered forehead-markings meant something to the brass at Ringo Vinda, Ahsoka would swallow her pride and make it happen.

Or at least she'd do her best.

Not exactly a good note to leave on, but Ahsoka had hugged Padmé tightly nonetheless and thanked her one last time.

She recognized Padmé's critical eye for fashion in the headdress and robe's minimalistic style; the long sweeps of deep blue and subdued metallic beads reminded Ahsoka immediately of Naboo and its peaceful waterways and genteel people. Despite the understated beauty of it all, Ahsoka had still felt a pang at exchanging her old string of akul teeth and practical leathers for something that would essentially hide her identity.

It was necessary, yes. But it was also one more tally-mark to remind her how different life had become in less than a week.

"No sign of Republic cruisers," Xyre said, flicking one claw to shut off the long-range sensors as Ahsoka guided the shuttle into one of Ringo Vinda's broad ports.

"And you're sure the 501st hasn't been pulled from the campaign?" It wouldn't have surprised her; legions were being called and recalled from various assignments all the time.

True to form, Xyre only gave a noncommittal grunt.

But when she made for the gangway and he didn't even twitch so much as a paw, Ahsoka very nearly lost her cool.

"Wait. You're not coming with me?"

"I have another matter to attend to."

"This is _your_ mission!"

The Nalroni only pulled up another group of sensor readings.

"I can't believe this," Ahsoka muttered, drowning her spike of ire just barely in a breathy pulse of the Force.

Before she could exit the shuttle, though, he called after her. "Try not to use the Force. You need the practice."

It was either fortunate or unfortunate that an escort stood waiting for her at the end of the shuttle's gangway; accosting her shipmate would probably be bad form for an ambassador. "Fine, then," she hissed, mindful of her waiting chaperone. "We're here because _you_ think it's necessary. But please, allow _me_ to do all the work."

The Nalroni might've agreed but Ahsoka had already stormed down the ramp with far less grace than she should've.

A stiff-necked Herglic—huge even in the expanse of the port—met her at the ramp's edge and, without even a word of greeting, ushered her along the port's central road. The port itself was immense, tall enough to handle the docking and unloading of the atmospheric harvesters that, even now, grumbled in wait for their runs. The inner airspace was layered with multi-level transrails and gleaming skybridges, all either leading along the run of the station or branching, strut-like, toward the station's outer walls. _Chemical lines_, she realized, noting the extra shielding along several pipelines.

As the Herglic wordlessly gestured for her to enter a transparisteel lift, Ahsoka noted that the so-called "restrictions" apparently didn't apply to the planetary runs; as she watched, the rumbling atmospheric harvesters lurched up from their berths and trundled into a half-hearted line out of the port, all peeling away from the station's wide, open-bottom bays to drop down to the planet below.

"Business is good?" she asked her guide, expecting a Xyre-like response.

She wasn't disappointed. Silence followed her up the lift and into Space Control's communications hub.

The hub consisted of a broad, half-circle of a dome, scaled by rows and rows of comm centers, each policed by an attentive Sullustan or an occasional Rodian. All wore the blue-and-gray piping of Ringo Vinda's customs center, and every one of them had an ear turned in the direction of the new visitors. A single Human, pale-skinned, lean-framed, and nervous-looking, stood close to the lift's exit, clearly waiting for Ahsoka's arrival.

From the various holos Padmé had provided regarding Ringo Vinda's administration, Ahsoka could identify the man as the customs minister without even having to glance at the insignia on his shoulder lapels. Which meant that Ringo Vinda's local administration _was_ concerned about something; she could only hope it was about the coming battle and not their shipment figures.

"Ambassador Tano, yes?" the man said. His voice was unnaturally thin and unctuous and immediately grated on Ahsoka's nerves.

"At your service, Minister Gowen," she replied, forcing a smile.

"Please, please—to my office," the minister said, turning on one well-shined boot heel and striding rigidly—and quickly—toward a second, smaller lift, obviously expecting her to follow. At least her mute escort didn't see the need to accompany her; she doubted the secondary lift would've fit all three of them.

"Ambassador Tano, we have no need to evacuate this station," the Human said as soon as the lift doors slid shut behind her. With a smooth hum, the lift rose past the hub and through the open air of the port, toward what looked like a cluster of large transparisteel orbs and what were likely the ministerial offices for that particular port. "The Separatists have not interfered with trade and, in fact, have only opened new avenues for our station. The revenue increase alone—"

"I'm sorry, Minister Gowen," Ahsoka interrupted. "I don't believe the Republic will see that as a reason _not_ to come." She fought back a grimace, suddenly wishing she had even a fraction of Padmé's eloquence. "The Republic will come—but as you know, my purpose here is only to coordinate the safe transit of civilians."

"Unnecessary." The lift came to a fluid stop and again, the minister exited at full speed, barreling down a curved, gleaming white hallway toward one particular office and following him inside; the office itself was wedge-shaped and broad, but not particularly deep, with a wide, curved window taking up the entirety of the wall behind his desk. "Truly, Ambassador," he said over his shoulder, one thin brow raised in a way that reminded her forcibly of Tarkin, "we have made provisions and thoroughly considered the risk."

"Ringo Vinda is home to more than three million workers." It was more than awkward to have to argue her case and chase after the man and Ahsoka realized it was a tactic of some kind on his part. _Well, gotta learn somehow_. She'd always learned better on her feet and facing the threat, than stuck in a study hall, anyway.

"Yes, yes, I'm quite aware of our numbers." The minister had stopped at the other side of his desk, every inch of it utilitarian durasteel and electronic displays, all of which listed what looked like the scheduled manifests from each of Vinda's several hundred ports and processing centers. He paused, hands linked behind his back, then turned smartly to face her, his brows knit together in a concern that didn't reach his eyes.

"According to my sensor readings, none of them have been evacuated from the station," she went on. "The possible casualty counts could be astronomical."

At the mention of sensors, the man's eyes flickered briefly. "Ambassador, Ringo Vinda is not a mere trifling mining world. We are the largest station in the entire Expansion Region and we cannot simply _shut_ _down_ on the whim of a perceived threat."

"It is _not _a perceived threat—" Ahsoka caught herself; her voice was rising. "Not, at least, just perceived. The Republic will not stand by while the Separatists lay claim to a valuable resource. You know as much as I do that the attack _will_ come."

"Then your so-called neutral ambassadorial efforts should be expended in another manner. Perhaps convincing the Republic to allow their former worlds the freedom to choose a side, before arbitrarily deciding to "rescue" us, yes?"

"_Those_ matters are left to the Senate, Minister."

"Ah, the greased wheels of politics."

_Which he likely knew all about._ Ahsoka forced a calm she didn't really feel. _Okay, Padmé_—_here we go._

"Minister Gowen, I _know_ you see that evacuating the station is not just a matter of suspending business. There are millions of lives here." She leaned over the desk, hands propped on the smooth surface. "Do you want their blood on your hands?"

"Of course not; another reason the Republic should carry on elsewhere with their campaigns."

"But you _know_—"

"The Separatists have already offered droids to recompense for our losses, should it come to that." The man turned away again to stare out at the port laid out below him, at another harvester that thrummed in liftoff. "For the price offered, it is a favorable risk."

"You would sacrifice—" Ahsoka stopped herself with effort.

It was business; he was a businessman. Of course he would.

Padmé was right. It _was_ the shipment figures, and any deaths would conveniently lie at the Republic's feet.

"I am, of course, required to consider what is best for the station's production values, Ambassador," the minister said, chin turned so that she could see his profile, sharp against the transparisteel.

"But your workers may not see the situation in a similar light." She leaned forward, surreptitiously studying the datalinks visible along the desk's surface. "As far as I am aware, this is not a slave operation. If the situation has drastically changed since the Separatists have made themselves so cozy here, then your three million workers may not appreciate your new terms. And if they _weren't_ so inclined, and would like to evacuate to safer regions?"

Gowen slowly turned as she spoke and she met his gaze. "You know very little about mining operations; even less about corporate mining or its workers."

"I know enough." She tamped down firmly on her growing temper. Now wasn't the time to lose her cool over corporate practices. "And I also, if I may, have a suggestion that would provide both the least amount of time spent out of production, as well as the general safety of Ringo Vinda's populace. It also," she added, thinking quickly, "might allow for continued production, which would be far better than the time spent on the shipment and programming of mining droids. You've already sent away your paying clientele. If you keep your workers _safe_, you can restart production far more quickly than having to _replace _those workers."

The minister _tsked_ and with an abruptness that sent her reeling for a nanosecond, Ahsoka realized how far the station's administration had dragged Ringo Vinda into Separatist hands. For them, there _was_ no going back.

"Trench won't allow it, will he?" She'd only read about the infamous Separatist admiral; Anakin had dealt with him long before she'd ever reached Christophsis. "Trust me, Minister. Admiral Trench has been beaten before, and he'll be beaten again. Your station won't fare well, and _you_ won't do much better, if you do not allow the immediate evacuation of the station's personnel."

The muscles along Gowen's jaw clenched. "If a former Jedi would like to play at being an ambassador, then I would suggest she educates herself on such matters, rather than tossing vague threats at my person."

Ahsoka very nearly flinched.

Was she _that_ recognizable? Even this far from Coruscant—even with a semi-disguise and a set of credentials that made no connection between her and the Order?

"Miss Ahsoka Tano, former Jedi and recently suspected traitor—" the officious man went on.

_Blast it._ Fine. If he was going to play it that way, she'd return the favor.

"And _I_ would suggest," she heard herself say despite the low buzzing in her montrals, "that you educate yourself on what exactly the Republic does with high-ranking officials who are found in the pocketbooks of the Separatists. The fact that the Republic felt the need to investigate the allegations against me—_and_ put me to trial—only means I've seen the inside of your future prison cell. Trust me, the Republic doesn't like a traitor."

Gowen's eyes narrowed and she caught the critical gleam there. "And what would you have me do? The logistics alone would require far more hyperspace-capable ships than Ringo Vinda currently has available."

A smile twitched at the corners of Ahsoka's mouth. _And I _didn't _use the Force. Not too bad._ "Trust me, you won't be going far."

* * *

"—so by the time Lyl reconnected the power couplings, _boom_!" Fives rapped the hilt of a vibroblade against his bunk's hard edge. "Every light in the fekking place strobed out and she starts screeching for Bei's head on a karking platter and she looks like a fekking dead blade-murderer runnin' around—"

Tup watched in mild amusement as his brother lost whatever composure was left in him, bending double, hooting at his own story and smacking Tup's knee. The ARC sat in his bodysuit on his bunk, most of his gear scattered across it in what Tup knew to be a highly organized chaos. Tup was at Fives' small desk, cleaning rag in one hand and a half-disassembled blaster in the other. One last gear-check had become a sort of pre-battle ritual for the two of them ever since Dogma's trial, and as the 501st and the 330th were currently streaming through hyperspace toward Ringo Vinda, it would be another hour before they would have to report for the mission's last briefing.

Not long after Umbara, Fives had—for reasons Tup still didn't quite grasp—taken Torrent's remaining rookie beneath his wing and had actively worked to improve Tup's strategy, aim, and speed toward what Fives always referred to as "ARC-trooper reqs". Whenever Tup had blandly noted that he didn't mind being just a grunt, Fives had smacked him on the backplate. "_You're better than that, and you know it_."

Tup had been grateful; Dogma had been his last remaining vat-mate from Kamino, and Umbara's lingering shadow—and Dogma's actions against their brothers—had left him with the distinct feeling of a watched man. _Why_, he was never sure; it was just always...there.

Yet Fives' confidence in both Tup's abilities and integrity had meant a very simple and quick acceptance by the rest of Torrent Company; the ARC's personality was enough of a force to be reckoned with that most brothers simply bowed to the man's whims.

"It was just—" Fives attempted after a good minute of wheezing laughter, "it was just like that time I dragged you down to the Hunnan Sector, back on Corrie—"

"I don't remember a murderer," Tup noted dryly.

"Ah, well." Fives shook his head, but his familiar half-grin seemed permanently fixed to his face. "It's the Hunnan. If you don't have a good murder every night, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun."

Tup rolled his eyes. "The heights of civilization."

Fives flipped the vibroblade in the air, caught it easily, and tested its balance one last time before sliding it into its sheath. "Adversity breeds innovation, or something like that. You'd be surprised—"

"Trust me, I'm not," Tup cut him off, knowing another invite to Lyl's shop would be forthcoming; since ex-Commander Tano's trial, Fives had found every excuse to push his various Coruscant Undercity associates on Tup. But if he was to believe Fives' stories had any grain of truth to them, the man's associates had an uncanny way of being in the right place at the right time, and Tup was hesitant to feed into the ARC's ongoing attempts to promote Tup up the GAR's ranks.

"—but you will be," Fives finished, ignoring Tup as he re-clipped his leg armor into place. "There's more to being a soldier than pointing and shooting."

"Right. There's also running. Lots and lots of running."

"Aren't you a karking ray of sunshine today?"

Tup grimaced. "Sorry, brother."

"What's up with you lately?" Fives' gaze had turned shrewd as he stood, shifting to settle the kama around his hips. "It's not like we're marching on Geonosis again."

"Missed that one, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Fives' teeth flashed again. "You were still slinging training blasters around back then." He bent to collect his chest plating and completely ignored Tup's snort. "Just don't lose focus out there, alright, brother?"

_Focus_. Tup winced—and when Fives glanced up, fixing the familiar blue-and-matte-gray pauldron over his shoulders, Tup could've sworn his brother's features blurred, as if superimposed over a bad holorecorder, that familiar smirk and goatee vanishing behind the haunted eyes of a hunted, desperate man.

"Tup?" Fives question was sharp and concerned and the image abruptly vanished. "Brother?"

"It's nothing," Tup managed, rubbing one hand over his eyes. He winced again at the blossoming headache at the base of his skull.

"Doesn't look like nothing."

Tup forced a half-laugh when a heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder bell. Fives was almost predictably intuitive. "No, really, brother. It's fine."

"You sure?" Maybe for the first time in months, there was real concern in Fives' voice.

"Yeah, yeah." Tup stood abruptly, knowing he'd need a moment alone to get that growing headache under control. "I'd better get going. Sergeant Vith is gonna be looking for me." But before leaving, he briefly clasped Fives' gauntleted hand where it still lay on his shoulder bell and met his brother's keen gaze. "Just...watch yourself out there, Fives."

The ARC's smirk reappeared. "Only if I have to. You'll have my back, brother."

* * *

"The Supreme Chancellor will see you now, Director."

Senior Administrative Aide Sly Moore, head of Chancellor Palpatine's personal staff, had a low, throaty voice that seemed at odds with the skeletal paleness of her Umbaran skin and eyes; a disparity that always threatened to unnerve Armand Isard, Director-General of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence and Director of Republic Intelligence.

It was an entirely irrational reaction that he always pushed aside with an abrupt mental shove. For all that Moore was as similarly ambitious as Armand, the proud tilt of her head and her sharp-eyed stare—boring into him as he stepped past her and into the depths of the Chancellor's office—spoke of a nexu jealously guarding her particular territory.

_And she may have it_, he noted with silent distaste. Flimsi-pushing and scraping before senators was not the life he would ever allow for himself.

A tiny movement—too fast for him to catch—came at his side just as he stepped past her, and he would've turned had not the Chancellor rose from his seat. "Ah, Director Isard. Good morning. I trust you have good news for me?"

"Yes, my lord." The Chancellor's smile was particularly thin this morning and Isard wasted no time in placing a datapad and holoprojector before the other man. "There are quite a few items of business to discuss this morning," he went on, settling himself into a hard-backed chair placed for him across from the Chancellor. "Several recent attacks have been instigated against the HoloNet's communication relays; it is currently unknown whether these are true Separatist attacks or simply Separatist sympathizers, attempting to make a statement. All defenses held, and I have delegated several garrisons to ensure our more remote outposts are secure. There was also a concerted effort expended on further bio-warfare…"

Isard rattled off the most recent intel for the Chancellor in as succinct a manner as he could, as he had done every week since before the official declaration of war.

It was not, perhaps, Isard's favorite hour of the week. Chancellor Palpatine, for all his appearance as a gentle, grandfatherly figure, was both cunning as a katarn and sharp as songsteel. There had been times Isard had had to answer for his own failures, and more often than not, had to nudge his own, personal agendas forward with the feather-light touch of a gossamer strand.

"Quite an aggressive week from the Separatists," the Chancellor noted, peering down his nose at the datapad Isard had offered him. "Perhaps they thought us distracted. A foolish decision, with one such as you, Armand, to watch their every move."

"Yes," Isard replied, careful to keep his voice neutral. "The bombing of the Jedi Temple surely instigated far more action from the various sectors and systems. The trial, even more so. But I do believe we have it all well in-hand."

"Indeed, Director." The Chancellor's brow creased further, as if in thought, although his eyes did not lift from the pad's slow-scrolling data. "Do let me know if the anti-Jedi sentiment becomes overly aggressive. Such outrage should not spread so far as to hinder our Grand Army's efforts."

"Certainly, my lord." Isard bowed his head briefly before broaching the last item on his agenda. "There was one matter in particular that you had requested to be kept abreast of." Isard hesitated, gauging the Chancellor's reaction, but the elder man merely watched him, expression mildly expectant. "Senator Amidala had a visitor yesterday."

It wasn't the senator's typical visitor; _that_ one—and his relationship with Amidala—was well-documented and expected. And while that Jedi's former Padawan was a known associate to Amidala, their conversation yesterday morning was certainly...unique.

"The visitor, I can only assume, was one I wished to be informed of?" the Chancellor prompted, and Isard felt the sudden—and bizarre—struggle to gather his own thoughts. He nearly shook his head to clear it, but caught himself. For all that his position demanded late nights and little sleep, to show such before the Chancellor would be an irredeemable act of weakness.

"Yes, my lord," he went on, and felt a sliver of satisfaction that his voice was as calm and level as always. "Ahsoka Tano, formerly of the Jedi Order. She had a most interesting conversation with the senator—all recorded, of course."

To the Chancellor's satisfied nod, Isard leaned forward and activated the holoprojector. The senator's sitting room appeared in hazy blue, occupied by Amidala and Tano. "Padmé," the young Togruta said, her voice tinnie through the holoprojector's speakers; she leaned forward in her eagerness. "I need to be on that station in some sort of official capacity."

As he listened to the conversation, the lines across the Chancellor's face deepened, cast in almost startling shadows by the faint blue of the recorder. The Chancellor's chamber was not dark, nor particularly cold, but a fleeting chill ran beneath the layers of Isard's directorial suit and up his spine.

Once the recording had run its course, it left a silence that had Isard shifting slightly in his seat.

"Very well, Director Isard. You may go," Chancellor Palpatine finally said.

Isard blinked at the abruptness of the Chancellor's dismissal, but rose, bowing silently to the man before him. When the Chancellor placed his hand over the holoprojector, Isard knew to make no move to retrieve it.

He heard the unmistakable slide of the chamber door opening behind him and the rustle of fabric from Moore's robes. His audience with the Chancellor had come to an end; however, the Chancellor—to Isard's satisfaction—was not quite yet done.

"Do keep me informed of any further such...meetings, Director."

"Of course, my lord."

* * *

The deckplates gave a gentle shudder—felt only as a subtle shiver through Rex's boots—as he strode through the main hangar beside General Skywalker. The vibration was the only sign of the _Resolute_ leaving hyperspace, and not a half-second later, the klaxons blared.

_Right on cue._

"_Move out!_" came the familiar shout and the first wave of fighters lifted from the bay to sweep through the magnetic shields, a thing of orchestrated, lethal beauty in every dip and curve of banking wingtips. Watching his brothers at their fighters' helms always sent a frisson of pride through him. Only the Jedi were better pilots.

"Rex, be ready for my signal." General Skywalker's voice was still rougher than normal and Rex had the distinct feeling he was walking next to a thermal detonator, set to blow at random, yet nothing would stop the tide of the war—and certainly not a lone Jedi walking away from the Order.

"Yes, sir. Ground troops will be ready." He wasn't sure what made him add, "Be sure to fry some buzz droids. Make up for Cato Neimoidia," but to Rex's gratification, one corner of the general's mouth twitched. It was the first sign of the general's former humor—hells, of his _personality_—since the legion had departed Coruscant. The Jedi general seemed almost disturbingly changed by the last week, and Rex wasn't sure how to take this new Skywalker. Or how much of the old Skywalker was in there, and just needed prodding out into the light of day, like a particularly irritable gundark.

"I'll keep my eye out." From the general's starfighter, R2-D2 blipped his opinion. Skywalker's mouth twitched again, almost into something resembling a half-smile. "So will Artoo."

"Good to hear, sir."

Skywalker clasped Rex briefly on the shoulder bell and would've made the easy leap into his fighter—and Rex would've moved away, already intent on the rapid shift of troopers moving into the larties—if not for the sudden change in Skywalker's expression, as abrupt as nightfall on Hoth and just as chilling.

Rex felt his own muscles tense in response and he eyed his general carefully. Even for Skywalker, this was...unusual. "Sir?"

Skywalker didn't answer him. Not directly, at least. The general had already brought his wrist-comm close to his mouth and barked a command to the bridge, his fist clenched into a rigid, dangerous ball.

"_Yularen, here._"

"Admiral, we have a situation."

Rex could _almost _hear Yularen's aggrieved sigh, although he knew the man was too good an officer to let that slip through the channels. "_Skywalker, we have only just begun our assault. Is this a situation that cannot wait?_"

"No, it can't," the general bit off, and Rex shifted on his feet, as if Skywalker's restless energy was crackling along Rex's own nerve endings. The captain's HUD flashed with incoming orders from the bridge; the larties would leave in ten, if the first waves of fighters were successful enough to punch a hole through Ringo Vinda's defenses to allow for boarding. Yet the Jedi's next words drowned out commands and rattled orders, the surrounding swell of troopers and thrumming engines: "Ahsoka is on that station and I need you to find her."

For a split second, all sound and pressure dropped; a slippery, buzzed weight that took Rex's breath and hit his boots before ricocheting back to press against his ears.

Ahsoka was _here_? On _Ringo-bloody-Vinda_?

"_General Skywalker, I don't believe I need to inform you that we _are _engaged in battle_," the admiral said, cutting sharply through the static in Rex's ears that had nothing to do with his bucket. "_Locating a single person on the largest space station in the region would take some time and effort—both of which are needed in other areas of our campaign_."

"That _wasn't _a suggestion, Admiral—"

"_And neither was my answer, General_."

Rex could've sworn the air shifted around him and he took a discrete step back from the Jedi. The cold fury on Skywalker's face was enough to send a squadron of tinnies scrambling for cover, but Yularen had faced down the general's temper far too many times—even via comm—to be swayed.

Thank the Force, the admiral was at least willing to compromise. "_Captain Appo has the comms well in hand_," Yularen went on, his voice steady as always. "_He will monitor and report any signs of Miss Tano immediately to you, if you so choose_."

"_Of course_ I choose—"

"_Then I do believe you are due to lead the second wave, General. As you were. Yularen out_."

"Of all the—" Skywalker bit off, then checked himself with an abrupt half-turn away from Rex, hands on his hips. Tellingly, he made no move to his ship; the rigid tension in the general's frame could've cracked durasteel and it might've been better for the starfighter if Skywalker didn't attempt to fly until he'd taken a few deep breaths.

And yet, despite the fact that Rex knew better, he had to ask. "Sir, you...sense her?"

It took another moment for Skywalker to answer, and when he did, he leapt into his fighter's cockpit and barely glanced Rex's way. "She's here." Rex stepped clear of the fighter but still watched his general; the man's grim fury hadn't lifted. "New orders, Rex. I'll be taking the front ground assault with you, as soon as we finish punching through."

A decision that didn't surprise Rex in the least, and, in fact, alleviated some of the concerns he'd had regarding the battle plan and the 330th's two generals. Having Skywalker's six was a familiar strategy that hadn't yet failed in terms of tactics. "Yes, sir."

"And Rex—" When Rex tilted his helmet up to meet Skywalker's gaze, the general's eyes blazed with both that cold fury and a very familiar resolve. "If you find her, I don't care what it takes, you get her out of there."

"Sir?"

"That's an order, Captain. Stun her if necessary—just get her out!"

"General, if Ahsoka is on that station, she likely has a good reason for being here."

Yet the general was shaking his head and his jaw worked, muscles clenching tight enough that Rex could see the tendons. "She willingly entered Separatist-held space—a _warzone_**—**"

"But sir—"

"—and she'll suffer the consequences for it." The general cut him off with the smooth hiss of the fighter's cockpit sealing around the man, blurring the Jedi's stony expression behind the curve of transparisteel. Rex didn't step away when the fighter's engines whined and the yellow-painted ship lifted away far less gracefully than normal.

No, this wasn't quite the general he'd served under. Not anymore.

There was nothing else he could say but, "Yes, sir," to Skywalker's dwindling silhouette, already a pinprick among the bright flashes of battle, brilliant against the black starscape.

* * *

**A/N**: A huge, huge thank you to **impoeia**, who dragged me through a spat of writer's block and brought coherency to this mad tangle of ideas.

That Alderaan Convention law is, verbatim, from Article 17 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Why did I put that in there? More as a nod to the senators and their work; I have headcanons about the sentients' rights tragedy of Ryloth and that Refugee Crisis conference.

Thank you to all who are reading this beastie of a fic! There are a couple of individual thanks I'd like to give to two reviewers, but your pm boxes aren't open. :) **ClaireBear89**, yes, oh Tup! Keep your eye on him... **TCWRules**, thank you so much! The series grabbed me and sucked me in (almost unwillingly), and continuing to inhabit that galaxy, even in the written form, has been and continues to be great fun!


	14. Chapter 13

"Always in motion is the future."

—Grand Master Yoda

* * *

To Ahsoka's surprise, the evacuation went smoothly.

She'd expected at least a broken-down ship or two; maybe an overloaded transrail or mass panic once the emergency lights flashed on. Just _something._

Instead, with Gowen's disgruntled approval, she'd dropped down to the communications hub, taken charge...and watched as a coordinated effort had flowed through the port with all the fluid ease of a river.

As she had promised Gowen, the populace hadn't gone far; prior to the station's launch just a hundred years ago, Ringo Vinda's gasses had been harvested purely on-planet and miners had lived in mag-field contained communities. But once the disc-station was locked around Vinda's girth, all the collection and processing followed it skyward. The dirtside towns had been abandoned—but not completely deserted.

It would be crowded down there, but it would work.

Hours later, exhaustion again itched at the back of her eyes and her throat was raw and dry as a vibro-sander. The last harvester—stuffed full of people, not giant compressed gas canisters—had lifted off the port's floor and rumbled through the filmy blue mag-field to take haven on the planet below. From what she could tell in the communications hub, thirty more processing centers—all around Vinda's massive ring—had just completed the same objective.

_Now, to take care of Anakin. _A sudden spike of ire—not her own—twisted her stomach. One shaky breath in, a smooth release, and she blocked him out. _Sorry, Skyguy. I know you don't want me here, but some things don't need to be ignored_.

Not like so many convenient details had been during her own trial, swept away by Tarkin's convenient suppositions and the bizarre evidence offered up by the GAR. And if Anakin was in danger from some inside source, if somehow Dooku or his lackeys had managed to sink their claws into the clones' ranks—even _Torrent's_ ranks—then she needed to do this.

If someone like Barriss could fall, was anyone safe from the Separatist's manipulations?

_Just let me figure out what's going on_. Ahsoka tried to send that tendril of thought down the fractured length of their Master-Padawan bond; a pulse of emotion that she hoped would translate. _Then I'll go back to figuring the rest of it out. __And then_—_just...go from there._

Ahsoka hesitated at the foot of her shuttle, one boot on the ramp. A tendril of the Force, and—

Yup. The fuzzball was still in the cockpit.

Back on Coruscant, not ten minutes after Xyre had declared her former Master as the war's next target, the Nalroni had abruptly abandoned Ahsoka's table at the specialty tapcaf with little more than a promise and a half-sketched plan on her crumpled napkin. But before leaving, Xyre had disassembled his saberstaff with a quick flick of his fingers and dropping the crystal—a deep, clear blue—into her palm.

She'd been too startled to react; the crystal's unique energy had thrummed with a clarity and intensity as deep and pure as its color, an electricity that ran across her nerve endings and tingled in her fingertips. It was decisively Xyre's; it pulsed with life and a sliver of its chosen's personality—which, itself, was an odd sensation. He was a strange creature, and the crystal echoed that perfectly before he plucked it from her grasp and started for the door.

Ahsoka hadn't missed the oddity of his departure, either; the customers didn't even seem to notice the Nalroni as he slipped through a small crowd of university students, piles of datapads snug in their arms. A Sullustan businessman, dressed head-to-toe in sickly-green nerfhide, had at least smelled him, and Xyre barely missed running the man over on his way out. Granted, the distaste on the little man's face could've just as well been aimed at the students, who were already pitching their datapads into a lopsided pyramid above one of the larger tables.

Ahsoka didn't want to trust him, but Xyre _was_ a Jedi, his Force-signature imprinted upon his lightsaber crystal, clear as the deep blue of Shili's skies—not to mention the naked, almost offensively blatant trust he dropped into her hand. _You don't just _give_ someone your lightsaber crystal. Not even for a second._

It'd made her uneasy, the entire flight to Ringo Vinda.

"All right," she said, clambering back into the main hold of her shuttle and leaning one shoulder against the cockpit's door frame, arms crossed. Xyre was still at the co-pilot's seat, running what looked like a communications diagnostic. "He's here. Now spill the rest of it."

The Nalroni took his sweet time answering her. The sensor screen went black and he leaned back against the seat, claw-tipped fingers tapping the length of his saberstaff's hilt. The red of emergency lights washed across the cockpit, painting the entirety of the port in dim shadow. "Do you not think it odd that Admiral Trench has not bothered to investigate the recent evacuation of his...living shields?"

"It's a big station."

"He controls it all."

Ahsoka shook her head. "He can't." When Xyre turned in his seat, Ahsoka went on. "A station like this is basically a planet. Even the Separatists can't completely control an entire planet—it's just too big." It was how they'd made in-roads on Onderon and even Cato Neimoidia; the same reason the Republic had such a hard time keeping any Outer Rim world from the Separatists, and why so many battles were becoming a disturbing echo of all the others.

"Oh, there are ways. And Trench has made good use of them."

"What..." Ahsoka shook her head, nonplussed. "So what are you saying?"

"What I am _saying_—" Xyre said, enunciating the word with a flash of his canines, "is that we are being watched."

"So we came here for _nothing_?" Ahsoka stared at him as he angled himself past her, close enough that she caught a faint whiff of the Coruscant Undercity still on him.

Xyre answered by collecting his cloak off the lower bunk, slinging it over his bony shoulders, and starting for the ramp.

"Oh, I don't think so." Ahsoka darted in front of him to block the access hatch, arms still crossed over her chest. Xyre could be stubborn with the best of them and still not hold a glowlight to her. Not exactly a trait she'd been proud of as a youngling, but keeping up with Anakin had required a lot of sheer tenacity. "You tell me exactly what you mean and _why_ we are here. _Now_."

He met her glare with a calculating one of his own, one ear ticking repetitively. "Admiral Trench knows we are here, yet seems to have chosen not to respond. I attempted to monitor the comms—" She caught the furtive glance he shot back at the comms console, "—but the encryptions on certain channels proved too complex to break. This Trench is a seasoned campaigner—"

"Anakin beat him before," Ahsoka interrupted. "He'll do it again. And that doesn't have anything to do with Tup."

"No?"

"_Really_? Okay," she snapped, patience shot. "Next time, you can just cozy up to Master Vilbum and the two of you can go off to—to wherever you've been hiding." Xyre snorted at that, but Ahsoka wasn't finished. "If you're working with _me_—and if there's something that _I_ need to know to keep Anakin safe—you are going to tell me. _Now_." When he remained silent, Ahsoka threw up her hands. "Just tell me what you've _seen_—"

"The circumstances around your trial were suspicious, yes?"

His question was abrupt and so unexpected that Ahsoka fumbled for words. "You could say that, yeah." 'Suspicious' was one way to put it. A Karazakian gladiatorial circus was probably less of a ridiculous, bloodthirsty show.

She mentally paused at that thought. _Well, maybe not._

"And someone wanted you out of the way, yes?" His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides; she sensed more than saw the movement, hidden behind the threadbare robe. "The Chosen One's Padawan."

Ahsoka briefly closed her eyes. "That really doesn't have anything to do with—"

"Do you not _see_?" the Nalroni persisted, again cutting her off—and this time, stepping closer, enough that she tensed. "How clouded the Force is—the fulfillment of prophecy—the rise of the Sith—"

"Okay!" Ahsoka snapped, holding up her hands again. "Okay." She took a breath and forced a calm she didn't really feel. "Back to Tup."

"The vision wasn't here."

"Wait. What?"

Then they'd come here for_..._

"It was at the Temple. Tup will attempt to execute your former Master while at the Temple." His eyes closed briefly. "Soon, I believe."

"That's a helpful timeframe," Ahsoka muttered, although her mind was already trying to process the mechanics of that. Tup wasn't a sniper; he was skilled, but not more so than most ground troops in the 501st. She knew he and Fives had bonded after Dogma's trial, but she wasn't exactly privy to barrack's chatter. So that meant he would have to get close enough, surrounded by hundreds of Jedi, with Anakin's reflexes... "Yeah, I don't see that happening."

"It was an order, as I told you on Coruscant. An execution." He stepped even closer and Ahsoka held her ground. "You know as well as I that if a Jedi could be swayed to Dooku's side, so could a clone."

"It's not exactly the same thing. The Force—"

"Yes, yes, the clouding of the Force—"

"—is one thing," she kept on, right over him. "These men have been trained since birth to withstand the mental and physical pressures of—"

"All things burn out in the end."

Ahsoka clenched her jaw tight around the words she'd _prefer_ to say. "You missed your calling."

His ear twitched. "Still a truth. You know as much as I do that no one is safe from the manipulations of the Sith, and yet the Council is stretched too thin to defeat the _true_ enemy—the _true_ source of this war."

He had a point.

And she _had_ heard of the Separatists making a concerted effort to employ biological warfare, specifically against clones. It was a short jump from bio-warfare to chemically altering certain behaviors. If some sort of brainwashing was happening to the clones— "So you think he might be captured here? Turned against the Jedi and then returned to his unit?"

"Yes."

Ahsoka shook her head. "Anakin knows those men."

"You trust these clones indiscriminately."

"With my life."

"Unbelievable."

She didn't miss the way his black gums pulled back in a sneer. Ahsoka's patience snapped. "Those men have died by the _millions_ to keep this Republic safe," she hissed, shoving a finger at his narrow chest, "and if you _knew_ them—"

"I understand that traitors _have_ been found in their midst, yes?"

"One. How does _one_ count against millions?"

"Only one within the 501st, yes, but there have been others—"

"That proves nothing." Furious at herself—she really couldn't trust _anyone_ in the Order—Ahsoka pushed past him. It was all more of the same supposition, the same almost-truths, and she'd had quite enough of that at her trial.

This time, _he _moved to block her, stepping in front of the doorway to the cockpit. "You and I both know this will be a long campaign for the Republic. _If_ this clone is captured, _if_ we can find out if there is a connection between this station and what I've seen. _If_ we can prevent what happens to your former Master, all avenues must be explored, yes?"

It took a great deal of effort and grinding of teeth, but Ahsoka managed to force back her temper. Maybe Anakin's irritation was rubbing off on her, even at this distance.

"Alright," she said, stepping back. "Alright, we do this."

"Yes."

Ahsoka eyed him for a moment; he seemed to be waiting for her grasp some other point, some missing piece to his logic. "So," she went on, "for now, we're here to…"

"Find out who is infiltrating the clones' ranks. Find out why _this_ clone was targeted. Find out if he will be recruited or forced to do this. Find out if any others are."

"Right." Ahsoka turned, one hand gesturing down the ramp. "After you then."

* * *

"Any reason Ahsoka should be here?" Rex managed through clenched teeth, boarding the gunship and barely nodding to the other troopers before opening a private comm to Fives. The ARC stood in the middle of the ship, feet spread and one hand gripping an overhead strap, impatient as ever for takeoff.

But Rex's comment visibly surprised him. Fives stiffened and turned his blue-painted bucket. "_What? No—_"

Dark visors turned their way and Rex forced himself to stand at ease, shifting his attention away from the ARC to face the blast doors. "Well, she's here. The general sensed her on the station. Is there _any reason _she should be on Ringo Vinda? _Any_?" Rex enunciated the words carefully, more out of his own irritation and to let go of the urge to bang Fives' head against a bulkhead.

Fives took a moment to respond, head tilted as if he was running through data on his HUD. "_As far as I'm concerned, she should still be on Coruscant_."

The muscles along Rex's jaw flexed, but he gave a sharp nod and cut the comm-channel. If Fives' contacts and information were focused on Triple Zero, Ahsoka should've stayed there and not gone gallivanting off into a warzone.

Which meant this little development was...what?

He highly doubted she would just join up with the GAR as some independent agent, not after her trial, and there wasn't any way she would swing willingly into the Separatists' plans, not even if High General Windu himself defected.

"_Captain_," came Yularen's calm, commanding voice over his bucket's internal comm. "_The fighters have cleared the way. You are go for launch._"

"Acknowledged, Admiral." With a blink, he opened a channel to the fleet of gunships. "We are green. Pilots, take us up."

The gunship thrummed beneath his boots and he knew squad after squad was lifting away from the _Resolute_'s protective belly, rumbling through the swath cut by Skywalker's team to bring them into Ringo Vinda's bays.

Whatever questions he had, they would need to wait.

* * *

There might not be sound in space, but the shockwave of a hit—glorious and brilliantly bright against the starscape before winking out in the vacuum of space—vibrated through Foley's fighter with a familiarity that made his blood sing for more.

His exultant whoop, however, wasn't exactly welcomed over the open comm. "_Don't lose focus, Rill-5_," came the gruff reminder from Rill Leader, crackling over the comms. "_There's a lot more where that came from._"

"Let 'em come!" he shot back, glad to _finally_ be back in battle, spinning and weaving through the vultures, scattered along the station's perimeter like so many buzzflies. This was what he loved, what he craved—and if he'd had to sit through another round of sabacc with the dirt-grinders—or worse, endure the Guard at the Coruscant base's common gym—he would've shaved his head and done a Jango.

Or at least drink a few liters too many and accost a commander—well, ex-commander—like he'd heard that Torrent medic do.

The fighter blipped a warning and he tucked into a roll, spinning away from a vulture droid that veered his way, only to loop around and set his sights. Another bright flash, and Foley couldn't keep his mouth shut. "You boys hear about that medic?"

He heard Rill Leader growl a reprimand, but it was drowned out by a sharp laugh from Rill-7, a scruffy brother who—knowing him—had probably spent the better part of his leave in other brothers' bunks. "_Heard he took out a lieutenant _and _a captain_."

Foley snorted as he tucked into another roll; really, the vultures were getting more and more predictable with every battle. "Took both to hold 'im back, I heard. All of 'em pissy—good show—"

"_Focus, Rill Squadron_," snapped Rill Leader over the comms, a dangerous edge to his voice.

"Ah, relax, Dolet," Foley said, rolling his shoulders and sliding into Rill Leader's three o'clock as the squad took up escort alongside a fleet of boarding gunships, rotund and deep-bellied like their brethren larties and completely lacking the swift speed of the fighters. "Textbook battle. Better than Cato Neimoidia," he added with a mutter. That action had all been low to mid atmosphere; not his favorite.

Rill Leader cursed. "_You just can't keep your fekking mouth sh—_"

There was no warning; only a flash, a shockwave; a guttural yell that cut off too abruptly.

Vultures, from below, erupted into the line of gunships and fighters, boiling from the deeper shadow of Ringo Vinda's underbelly, masked by the heavy magnetism and shielding used along the processing stations. Taking out Dolet—_fek_—cracking open the boarding ships like cans—his controls slipped, he felt the fighter drift, uncontrolled—

"_Rill-5, Rill-7, Rill-3, do you copy_?"

Time snapped and Foley had control again, targeting and firing on the flood of dull-marked droids, matte gray and nearly invisible against the protective curve of Ringo Vinda.

"_Rill-7 is go. Taking heavy fire_."

"_This is Rill-3, got a load on my back!"_

He heard the comm, but his focus was fixed on the next wave, again appearing from the underbelly, too fast to react to with more than reflex and firepower. If he responded to the call, he didn't notice.

"_Pull back!_" he heard again, but it was too late. "_All units, pull back!_"

But he was too close to the station now, darting between its skeletal arms, somehow clearing a path for two gunships, finding the side bays from the mission briefing holos just as one, then the other gunship took hits—the first exploded, the second spinning into a side bay in a shower of sparks and a waiting complement of battle droids.

"This is Rill-5! Got an in, Vector 4-12," he called. "Shadow my coordinates!"

But if the first rockjumpers would even have a chance to make a hold, he'd have to time a shot perfectly into that mass tangle of droids, already laying down fire on the sparking scrap of the larty—but there was another vulture—no, three—homing in on his fighter—if he didn't pull up _now_, he'd have no chance, shot down in a battle that should've been textbook—

Foley set the sights and let loose a volley of missiles, a second before there was light, heat, and then nothing at all.

* * *

Sergeant Vith had about as much personality as a protein cube. Or, at least, that had been Fives' observation, seven months ago when Tup had been transferred into the sergeant's squad.

Tup didn't mind the blandness, and if he was honest with himself, he occasionally preferred it. The man was simple, uncomplicated, no-nonsense, and well-suited as squad leader. And really, between General Skywalker and Fives, most missions were as far from orthodox as possible. It was kind of nice to have someone as stolid and predictable as Vith around.

It did, however, make for a quiet ride in the gunships.

Red light bathed his brothers' armor so that all was shadow and darkness, polarized by his HUD until he blinked it off in annoyance. Maybe Fives' mod wasn't so great after all.

The artificial gravity was lighter in these ships. Tup kept a hand on the overhead strap not so much for balance, but to keep a jolt from floating him off the floor.

"_Gonna get rocky_," came the pilot's warning, followed a moment later by Vith's order to magnetize their boots. The quiet hiss was almost lost in the waiting silence and thrum of engines.

And then all hell broke loose.

A violent shake knocked him against a bulkhead, despite his grip on the handstrap and his boots still firmly on the floor; he heard the squad's medic curse, another warning shout from the pilot, and then the sick swoop as the gunship banked hard. Part of his mind realized they had to be close to the station if _real_ gravity was pushing at him—

"_Going down! Brace_—"

The pilot's voice cut off with the deafening shear of metal screaming against Tup's buffers; he felt the sudden urge to move forward, toward the front of the gunship, just as everything spun, blurred, twisted. He lurched to the shriek of his mind, loud as the whine of the ship's dying rattle.

Another lurch, the bone-crunching jolt of the gunship skidding along a surface and the scream of metal on metal.

"Troopers, out!" he heard Vith roar over the whine in his ears that had nothing to do with the buffers. The sergeant had his hand to his bucket and the other over the release for the blast doors. "Droids incoming. It's hot! _Take 'em!_"

But Tup lurched forward the remainder of the distance and before he could stop himself, he pulled hard on the emergency locks, sealing the squad in before Vith could crack the doors.

"_Tup! _What're you—"

Vith was cut off by another roar, this one completely different—a thin shriek, then the bellowing, boiling rumble of a missile strike, thrumming through the walls of the gunship but not touching the troopers within. Gunships had the heat shielding to withstand atmospheric entry; whatever droids were outside the ship, however, weren't so lucky.

A hand came down on Tup's shoulder. "Nice call," Jammer—the medic—said. "How'd you—"

"It's not over, boys." Vith cycled the locks and forced the doors open with a shove of his shoulder, so that light and heat of burning scrap, roaring even through the buffers, spilled into the depths of their transport. "Let's clear 'em out!"

* * *

"And we're just going to, what, _ride_ over there?"

The klaxons had shut off and the port was eerily silent as Ahsoka kept pace with Xyre. They were striding toward the transit station, a many-tiered transpari-and-durasteel behemoth set along the rear of the port, where it fed into multiple layered lines. From the port floor, she could see a couple of vehicles sitting in rest at the station, abandoned and unlit.

They passed beneath the transit station's lower overhang, past viewscreens still ready to broadcast transrail run-times and stops along the entire, massive circumference of the station; everything from the short-rails meant for inter-Sector travel to the long speedways used to travel the whole of the ring. All had been blanked to zero.

"We're in Sector 12. The battle is focused on Sector 17. You have a better idea?"

"We could take the ship."

"I reiterate. A _better_ idea," he said, one claw tapping an override on the transit station's lift and stepping into it.

Ahsoka gritted her teeth. "I've flown into worse."

"Yet I'd rather keep our escape options a little more safe from your obvious inclinations."

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

The Nalroni's teeth gleamed. The red emergency lights painted everything—even Xyre's canines—crimson. "Only that you are very similar to your former Master."

Huh. Was that...a compliment?

"Uh, thank you."

"That was not exactly a—"

Ahsoka cut him off. "But I'm taking it as one."

Xyre was silent as the lift came to a stop at its highest level, within a dark, enclosed shell of a bay. Ahsoka realized it was an emergency garage, a line of speeders resting in their alcoves.

"Business really is good." Ahsoka eyed the streamlined sleekness of them all. Ringo Vinda certainly didn't have a problem with credits. "You still haven't told me your plan."

"For now, observe." Withdrawing a slender comm device from beneath his robes, he held it up so that it flashed in the emergency lights. "Slice and monitor comms. Research." He glanced at her. "That's the typical role of an operative."

Research. Logistics. Even on Coruscant, her attempts at research had never been particularly productive. Granted, research and logistics under Anakin's tutelage had involved far more of the improvising sort and a great deal less planning—usually to Master Kenobi's predictable, aggrieved: "_Anakin_!"

Xyre seemed to pick a security vehicle at random and made quick work of starting it up, although Ahsoka doubted the legality of the Nalroni's chosen ignition method. The subtle whine of the engines spoke of power and, again, lots of credits.

"I see you were at least doing some homework while I was busy," she noted, sliding into the driver's seat when Xyre stepped back a moment to examine his handiwork. She ignored his glare. "Shall we?"

"I drive."

Ahsoka lifted both brow-markings. "Nope."

"Listen, hornhead—"

Ahsoka revved the engine and the speeder jumped forward eagerly onto the track that cut through the bay. She heard a string of very un-Jedi-like curses trail after her; to her satisfaction, the canid was forced to make a Force-leap into the side seat. "Good for you the top was down," she said, not bothering to hide her smirk.

"Set down on the track," he said, ignoring her remark—although she caught the extra-annoyed rasp to his voice. "It'll auto-lock."

There was a sudden hum of electromagnetics, then an abrupt force of speed, pushing at her body until the speeder enclosed itself and compensated. The station flashed by, faster and faster, all durasteel and transparisteel, with an occasional glimpse of the yellow-brown planet below.

None of which mattered, ten minutes later.

"Company," Xyre said. A squadron of droids waited for them down the length of the track, appearing like apparitions out of the half-light, blasters held at ready.

_Of course. _Now _Trench is interested. _

"Hang on!" she yelled, and with a quick flip of the speeder's controls, sent the vehicle skidding sideways, bottom aimed at the droids.

Ahsoka heard blaster fire, felt the lurch of impact and the drift as the speeder's momentum was skewed, moments before they crashed into—and likely crushed—at least a good half-dozen B1s.

"Engines took a hit," the Nalroni shouted over the coughing whine of the speeder. The speeder's filmy canopy stuttered and failed, and the abrupt push of air sent her senatorial headdress flapping against her forehead.

"We'll just have to deal with it!" she shot back, peeling out of the sideways slide and jerking the vehicle off the track to make a sickening swoop down, toward the broad pedestrian passageways that webbed deeper into the station. More droids were in pursuit, riding speeder bikes from the feel of the vibrations against her montrals, but she put most of her focus on keeping her own speeder airborne.

"You've got to shake them."

"I'm aware of that!"

Ahsoka zagged, narrowly missing a line of kiosks—but not missing the fact that they burst into flame under Separatist fire—then dipped down another level when an open-air arcade appeared. And still the droids followed. And multiplied, from the buzzing sound of it.

When she made a careening hairpin turn around to another broad passageway and heard the satisfying sound of screeching, crashing metal behind them, the Nalroni made a scrabbling grab for the speeder's dashboard.

"_Are_—_you_—_mad!_"

"I know what I'm doing!"

"Trying to get us_ killed!_?"

"Maybe you should think about better communication, yourself!"

Her voice dropped on the last word, as the speeder lurched out into sickeningly empty airspace above a broad industrial processing line, dark and silent after the evacuation. The massive bay was riddled with pipelines and coolant rigs, enclosed pools and flattened cells that condensed the harvested gasses for transport and use.

And sailing over it all, Ahsoka could see they wouldn't quite make it to the other side. The repulsors whined in protest, losing altitude in a halfhearted arc.

Xyre was still scrabbling at the dashboard. If she weren't also aimed at a fiery death, she might've thought his discomfort somewhat satisfying. "We hit those pipes and it's _over_, Jedi!"

Ahsoka ignored the jab. "Don't worry. I have a plan!"

"What was all that about better communication?" he snapped. Despite the increasing buzz of speeder bikes behind them, Ahsoka allowed herself a little glow of satisfaction. She'd finally gotten under the Nalroni's skin.

"Just be ready to jump," she warned. With the practiced ease that came with fighting at Anakin's side, she drew her lightsabers from the folds of her ambassadorial robes—and with barely a spring, leapt from the speeder and onto the lead bike, decapitating the droid with one quick swipe before somersaulting to the next B1.

It took the droids long enough to figure out she was fighting back, but by the time they were aiming their blasters, Ahsoka had leapt on, taking out another droid and another before revving one bike to a screeching wail and catching up to her faltering speeder, controlled just barely by the awkwardly seated Xyre.

"And now, we go."

Xyre spared her only a furious glance. "Go? We have nowhere _to _go!"

"Then let me save you the trouble of deciding," Ahsoka said, hopping from the already-faltering bike back into the speeder. She wrenched him up from his seat by the scruff of his neck and timed her leap to the drifting aim of the speeder, drifting lower in its arc that aimed it on a collision course with the industrial bay's far wall. The wall itself was a sheer expanse of durasteel, indented only with a few pedwalk tunnels and each of those fitted with turnstiles that, on a normal day, would be logging a stream of workers in and out.

One foot on the speeder's dash and hand still gripped tight on Xyre, Ahsoka jumped.

There was air, then the solid feel of durasteel beneath her boots; she vaulted past the turnstiles of the pedwalk tunnel and into the safety of the reinforced durasteel walls, Xyre snarling at her shoulder. She ignored him and ran. They had to put enough distance between them and—

The rocking, boiling heat of the explosion hit, pushing her forward into the corridor. She ducked a side passage, and even though Xyre had finally shrugged off her hand, they both heaved forward and away from the fire at their heels.

By the time they made it to the next juncture, the thrum through the deckplates hadn't subsided and Ahsoka heard the tell-tale hiss of the station's fire-safeties kick in. Xyre started to slow, snout turning back, but Ahsoka pushed him forward. "Get past the breach doors!"

Three seconds—they were over the threshold—and the mechanic whir of an airlocking safety-hatch whined from behind them, sealing them off from the still-rumbling explosion.

But Xyre still seemed surprised by it all, staring through the lone pane of transparisteel set in the safety-hatch, studying the smoke that roiled on the other side.

"You don't get out much, do you?" she noted, eyeing him and his reaction. Without a word, the Nalroni turned and started forward.

Ahsoka couldn't quite keep back another smirk.


	15. Chapter 14

"While I am helpless to prevent the fighting, I can offer your people sanctuary; a safe haven until the conflict has ended."

—Count Dooku to Governor Roshti

* * *

"_Get your _shebs _DOWN!_"

A rattling explosion flashed bright, roiling outward in a shockwave of light and fire, flinging metal and the crumpled figures of his brothers, small and dark and frozen for a split second in sharp relief against the end of the landing bay—

And then the force of it rushed over Tup, roaring through buffers and pressing him down over the scream of muscles and the aching protest of joints bent too long in active firefight.

"_Fek_," Jammer hissed on the open comm. "Squads Two and Five are gone."

Tup forced his bruised body up into a kneel, his HUD fighting to polarize and compensate for every flash of light; a jumble of real and not-real colors that shot a spike of pain through his temples and down to the base of his skull. Dried sweat itched in every crevice of his bodysuit and his lips had split and cracked hours ago, the taste of copper and salt sour on his tongue.

All had gone to _haran_ the moment he and his squad had planted their boots on Ringo Vinda's scorched deckplates. Ten hours later, things hadn't gotten any better.

They were holed up in the shadow of a downed droid tank that had listed hard to one side; a couple of headless B1s dangled, lopsided, out of its twin hatches, and its lee offered a relative safe zone for the moment.

Beyond the droid tank leaned an old atmospheric harvester—or what was left of one, reduced to a burning shell that shivered with each echoing blast of whatever had detonated. So far, it had masked their heat signatures from the droids, but Tup knew their luck wouldn't hold.

"We've lost the bay! No one else is coming!" Their heavy gunner was hunched over his cannon, exhaustion etched across his shoulders. His visor was fixed up, though, reflecting firelight and the thin haze of blue that rose beyond the harvester—and the black of space beyond it. "We need an exit, Vith!"

"Our orders were to take this bay, Kir. We _will_ find a way."

"How? By blowing us to all Nine Hells? Those tin cans are doing a damn fine job of it so far!"

"_Trooper_."

Kir ignored the warning edge to the sergeant's voice. "We've gotta regroup. There's no other way, Sarge!"

Tup bit the inside of his cheek. Kir wasn't wrong—but hells if he picked the wrong time to mouth off to Vith.

After that initial makeshift landing, ten other squads—mostly of the 501st's Roller Company—had joined Vith's in an effort to keep the bay. They were in Sector 16, far from the scheduled landing zones, and Tup wondered if they'd accidentally dropped onto a Separatist staging area; droids here were thick enough to blast two with one shot and their sheer numbers had overwhelmed the clones from the beginning.

Ten separate pushes into the lower pedestrian corridors had been repelled—brutally—by droidekas, who seemed content to stand sentry at every exit point.

And after that last push, the droids had managed to separate Vith's squad from the others. In the universe's particular brand of cruel irony, that one tactical error meant he and his brothers still had their heads.

For the moment.

"So we're on our own?" Rhyd, their token rookie, asked.

The burst of low static over the comm was likely the sergeant's long suffering sigh. If Rhyd and Kir survived this mess, they'd probably find themselves on EVA-duty, scrubbing turrets with a toothbrush for the next two months.

"Things get rough and you lot turn into a bunch of crying womp rats—"

But that moment of inattention took Vith out.

A low hum of sniper fire—Tup felt it before he saw it, that crackle of the air—and the sergeant dropped hard to the deck plates, a bright, smoking hole in his torso, one hand scrabbling at his chest plate and the other automatically re-aiming his blaster.

"Commando droids!" Jammer dropped, too; one knee on the deck plates as both hands worked at the sergeant's armor, but his visor was trained up into the higher reaches of the bay. "Watch your heads!"

Tup's HUD adjusted and he saw the unmistakable, metallic gleam through the haze of smoke. On instinct, he yanked Rhyd down and the second shot singed the shiny's helmet. The kid breathed a curse and a thanks.

"_Fierfek_," Kir growled, shifting on his balls of his feet; restless as a caged katarn. "We're just sittin' nuna! You three, grab the sarge. We've got to _go_!"

The heavy gunner ignored Jammer's startled "_No!_" and launched himself forward, rotary spinning as the burly brother heaved his cannon around.

He didn't make it two steps.

Three shots in rapid succession snapped the clone's wide-striped helmet back; Tup heard a choked gurgle before the man hit the deck plates.

Jammer's shout of rage was drowned out by a hissing, thrumming roll; the droidekas had decided to come play, too—and again on instinct, Tup drew Rhyd back with a hand on his shoulder bell, blaster trained out but not firing. There'd be no lucky shots through those shields.

"Back!" Vith rasped. The medic had Vith on his feet, but the sergeant was hunched against his second, each breath a wet rattle. "Back behind the harvester!"

But then—_finally_, as Tup took the cover for their left flank, edging himself into the hole left by Kir—he saw it: a familiar ring of light lit the darkness beyond the landing bay's magnetic fields.

"Sergeant!" Tup winced as his HUD fought to polarize against another flash, bright and rippling across the feed, as the harvester gave in to the inevitable and crumbled inward with a groaning sigh. "We've got our incoming!"

But Vith had seen them, too, those gunships angling toward the glittering haze of the magnetic fields—just as Tup saw the vultures close behind, the bright blue of their engines and the red flash of plasma bolts—and they all saw a streak of yellow, a burst of blue, and heard the whining scream of an engine as a vulture droid aimed itself directly into the bay.

"_No chance!" _Vith yelled into the comm, open to the incoming ships and spitting with sudden static. _"No chance!"_

The gunships banked hard, wide bellies pale in the light cast by the station's bright illuminators.

Two more vultures careened through the magnetic field and skidded across the bay floor, sparks singing in a spray that lit the burned bodies of battle droids in a shower of gold. Wingtips caught, spun the vultures in a whining shriek of engines—by a stroke of sheer luck—directly into the droidekas.

In the next seconds, it was chaos and hell; the vultures ricocheting off the landing bay floor, the droidekas nothing more than bright spots of flying shrapnel. Tup had Rhyd down again, pressed flat against the deck plates and Jammer shouting through the comm, words that lanced at Tup's head like the bright fireballs of the vultures, but Tup had turned back to the black field of space.

It was only a glimpse, but he saw it; the Jedi fighter as it peeled away, guiding those gunships from the wreckage that was this bay.

And any chance of an assist.

"I'm—" Vith rasped, once the air stopped shivering; the sergeant's voice was a wet sound that dragged out each breath he took. "I'm open to suggestions, lads."

Ironically, their solution came from the rookie.

"There's an echo along here." Rhyd had stayed low, kneeling where Tup had shoved him to, his hands were on the deck plates that formed the bay floor. He'd ducked his head low like a particularly dazed buzz-beetle, his visor tipping back and forth.

And then the kid found it.

A catch swung a deck plate up and back—a short ladder led below. Tup mentally kicked himself. Of course a station would have a maze of maintenance shafts and tunnels; maybe even a purely maintenance-duty transrail, for all the lower grunts who worked solely on the station's innards.

Vith jerked his chin down once. Rhyd swelled at the approval.

"Time for evac and recon—" The sergeant's voice dropped on the last word, wheezing out on a gasp. Jammer hovered at the man's side, but Tup could tell there wasn't much a field medic could do. "Get in there, troopers."

"Tup," Jammer said, with a dip of his visor. "You first."

But before Tup could move, the sergeant shook his head. "Negative." For an injured man, he was still a force of determination, that same calm quality Tup had always liked about him, the moment Captain Rex had transferred him to the squad. He clasped the medic's shoulder briefly—just enough to maneuver the man onto the ladder—then shoved with surprising strength. The medic dropped the whole six feet to land with a curse. "You've got command, Jammer. Go!"

"Sarge! There's—" Rhyd broke off, voice strained.

Tup glanced up at the kid's tone, then adjusted his grip on the deece. Over the rumble of fire—still loud through his buffers—came the unmistakable metallic ripple of droid feet. And then, just as steady, the predictable pattern of their blasters.

"That's our cue!" Tup snagged Rhyd's back plating and hefted the younger clone into the hatch. Rhyd had to scramble for purchase on the rungs. "Sarge, let's go!"

"No," Vith rasped, his visor lit from the burning harvester and his blue stripes vivid against the glow. The sergeant had one arm braced on the edge of the lifted deck plate, deece trained out, and his other hand struggled to lift the last thermal det from the back of his belt. "You're a good soldier, Tup."

"Sargeant!" _Frell_, no. "You can make it!"

This close to Vith, Tup's filters leaked in the sharp taint of iron—and beneath, the stench of charred flesh. Tup's own helmet was reflected in the sergeant's T-visor, the tear-drop smeared with a line of black. "Help Jammer keep that kid alive."

"Sir!"

"That's an _order_, trooper!"

Tup hesitated, then slid the length of the ladder to the deck plates below. He could hear Vith's blaster, saw him crouch over the hatch, using the raised deck plate as a shield and his deece kicking with each shot, a glow of blue that lit the scratched and dirty plastoid.

The det was in the man's palm, cradled against his chest—his breathing ragged, failing. "_Go_!"

Tup gripped the ladder's rail—felt the bite of cold metal through his gloves—saw the sergeant's fingers on the det—and stumbled for the oppressive dark beyond the hatch's spill of light.

Sixty seconds later, the maintenance tunnel's walls shook and the rattling shock of an explosion knocked him forward. But he kept on.

* * *

"Count Dooku, what you have requested will not be so easily_..._obtained."

Each word was drawn out with a rattling click of pinchers; an affectation that pressed Dooku's patience to the point he allowed his fingers to curl around his saber's hilt, hidden in the thick folds of his cloak. He waited in silence for the Harch's limbs to shift restlessly; a fissure in the beast's confidence.

"This will take time. Resources. I must request—"

"Information, Admiral." Dooku slid his intent through his voice, smooth as shimmersilk. There could be no room for error, not with the circumstances that had arisen over the past months. "It is not a complicated matter. You will observe and report as necessary."

"Of course. Although you do understand," Admiral Trench countered, stroking the tipped points of his mandibles, "that this will delay my—_our_," he amended, with satisfying haste, despite the clack of pinchers, "victory. The Separatist Alliance is in grave need of these resources, my lord. Surely this matter is only an...inconvenience, rather than a necessity."

Dooku again waited, although this time, his full disapproval—that subtle shiver in the air—sent even his estate's service droids scattering.

"You will complete your objectives, Admiral. _All_ your objectives."

A flick of his fingers and the Harch's agitated twitching dissolved in a shadow of blue.

Dooku released his tension into the Force, flexing his fingers before clenching them again. Admiral Trench provided results where required, despite the beast's arrogance. The Separatist push into the Mid Rim rested on industrial holdouts; planets and systems rich with materials to keep the Trade Federation's factories churning at full capacity.

Yet his Master's orders had been pointedly clear.

Nothing was quite as it seemed on Ringo Vinda, nor across any sector of the vast web spun by Sidious. The events on Coruscant—the bombing, the fall of Unduli's Padawan—_now_ he saw the fruition of certain coordinated attacks on seemingly unimportant shipping lines, several months past. His Master's touch was deft, but Dooku knew the fragile difference between chance and circumstance.

No, the events on Coruscant—and Sidious' most recent order—were quite illuminating.

A blip came from his palm, far sooner than expected, and Dooku—_Tyranus_—knelt to the cold stone before the flickering blue.

"All is prepared, Master."

"Your general has been defeated by Skywalker before."

"Trench has taken great pains to study Skywalker's strategy. I have full confidence in the admiral's abilities."

"I need not remind you that Skywalker's immediate defeat is not the ultimate objective at this juncture."

The beat of silence after was long enough that he felt a coil of displeasure curl around his mind. Yet Tyranus persisted; it was a logical question, regardless of recent events. "A quick and decisive victory here would only forward our goals, Master. Is there a reason for such restraint?"

The displeasure tightened; significant enough that Tyranus felt it slip through his blood like the ice caked along the diamond-panes of his estate's arched windows.

But the silence answered Tyranus' own suspicion.

A shift had occurred; he felt it even now, despite the trickle of satisfaction that Sidious allowed to flow through their bond. That shift rippled out from Mandalore, sluggish and disjointed, only to pool in Coruscant, eddying against shadows that he could just glimpse in passing. And somehow, this recent wellspring came from the events on Naboo and the false death of one Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Sidious' disappointment had been shallow, dismissive, so much like a politician's indifferent platitude. In the aftermath, the entirety of the matter echoed of a test.

A feint.

But towards what end?

"Your focus is not where it should be, my apprentice," the Master said. There was no mistaking the cold fury sliding through Sidious' words; it snapped across Tyranus' thoughts with an intent that bent the count even further forward over his knee. "You will keep me appraised of the situation."

"As you wish, my lord."

* * *

With a casual nudge of his mind, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic allowed the shades to retract. Coruscant's evening light spilled across the deep red of his chamber's carpet, his long shadow reaching far enough to fall across the outer doors.

Beyond the office, unseen but distinct in the Force, stood two Red Guards at their posts, blank and clear as transparisteel; and further, Miss Moore at her desk, a subtle tick and swirl of images as she managed his affairs. Further still was the detail of Coruscant Guards, their minds as subdued as Palpatine's drab robes.

He considered them all for a moment; touched their minds along those tendrils that flowed in mercurial shadow; felt the immediate give to that touch, an utter supplication that prickled his skin in satisfaction.

Tyranus' quite obvious concern offered the same gratification.

Sidious' newest acolyte had proven herself capable; she was expendable but necessary, and although not all had played out according to his wishes, the outcome had been surprisingly successful. He could _see_ the effects in the Force; that well of darkness, pulling with a far stronger current now more than ever before.

The Jedi seemed content to drown themselves; the war needed little urging on his part, not with the Separatists gaining ground and public opinion of the Jedi plummeting. No, it was that shudder of indecision in the Force—all coalescing around Offee's failure to kill Ventress—which would need a certain amount of judicious attention.

Of course, he need not dirty his own hands.

The desk's inset comm blipped discreetly at a single brush of thought.

He kept his tone carefully neutral.

"Miss Moore. Please notify Director Isard that I require his attention to a certain matter. Immediately."

"As you wish, my lord."

* * *

"So how are we going to take anything with just the three of us?"

"We're still on our feet, trooper." Jammer's patience with the kid had snapped half an hour ago. Tup almost pitied Rhyd. Almost. "Stow it unless you can be useful."

"But we don't even have comms—"

"_Enough_, Rhyd."

A clack of teeth echoed in the corridor and Tup smothered a snort.

They'd spent the better part of an hour in the maintenance tunnels. The sheer size of Ringo Vinda meant there had to be private bays or minor transrails that could provide some means to reconnect them to another landing force, but so far, their search had been futile.

Uncomfortable, too; Tup's back and thighs had cramped to numbness too many corridors back to count, but the tunnels never stretched any higher than a tall Sullustan. Whoever decided to build maintenance corridors with Jawas in mind deserved a swift kick up their fekking _shebs_.

On top of discomfort, they'd realized—after about ten minutes of trying to raise the _Resolute_ or any other ship in the fleet and meeting only a fizzle of ear-splitting static—that their long-range comms were jammed.

Which was always a sign of great things to come.

_Could use some of Kix's luck, right about now_.

Tup wisely kept that thought to himself; he was pretty sure Jammer had lost his last share of leave-creds to the other medic.

"_Kid does have a point, Tup_." Jammer's voice was quiet in Tup's ear; their short-range comms hadn't been affected, at least. "_Got any ideas on getting out of this mess?_"

Tup hesitated, one eye on the juncture they were about to pass and the lines of Aurebesh along its frame. Jammer might have been Vith's second, but for all that he was a good medic, he didn't have Fives' quickness or Vith's steadiness when it came to leadership. Tup could tell by the way Jammer's fingers clenched around the deece in his hand, the man was as adrift as Rhyd.

"You good at slicing?" Tup asked, off the private channel.

Jammer cut a look at Tup, then at the wall Tup's hand had lifted to rest on—and at the _cresh-cresh_ stenciled in plain black.

The medic snorted. "The long-necks had me as a data-shadower before they figured out I was even better with a scalpel."

"Think you can stow that scalpel," Tup asked, patting the familiar symbol, "and brush up on signal-hopping for a day?"

* * *

"Sector 16, up ahead."

Ahsoka said it less to notify Xyre—who sat motionless in the pilot's seat—and more to fill the long, empty silence that had stretched between them since she'd scrapped the droids.

The maintenance shuttle they'd snagged wasn't as nimble or speedy as an emergency speeder, but the tiered mag-tracks of a transrail kept the klicks blurring by.

There still wasn't any evidence of the battle from the inside. Stretches of the station's hull had long lines of transparisteel panes, a clear view to the black of space beyond, and for those brief seconds, Ahsoka could see the flash of a distant firefight, bright against the curve of the planet below and too far away to make out any particular starfighters.

_Anakin is out there. Without me to watch his back._

Her gut twisted. She knew just how well _that _usually worked out.

_No_—she was _here_ because of Anakin—still watching his back, like always, despite the fact she'd told him she needed to figure it all out on her own. _Plans change, right? _Ahsoka reminded herself. _So I let him do his thing and I'll do mine. Figure _this _mess out and leave. Simple as that._

Yeah. Right.

Whatever the Separatists had planned for Tup, she needed to find out and vacate as quickly as possible. As close-mouthed as Xyre was about the entire ordeal, she doubted it ended here; this was a Republic station, and if clones were being stolen for experimentation, any kind of lab couldn't possibly be located here or any system held by the Republic.

Which, ultimately, meant she was headed toward Separatist space.

Ahsoka rubbed at her arms, the callouses of her fingers catching on the smooth fabric. What _were_ the Separatists up to? First Barriss and the nanodroids; now clones.

To add to the bizarre-factor, she hadn't seen any evidence of droids since the processing bay, a fact that itched uncomfortably at the base of her lekku. There should've been sentries, probe droids—_something_—posted along the transit stations they'd passed, especially after their welcoming party in Sector 12.

"Why no droids?" she asked without thinking, as they flashed past the last Sector 15 transit station and into 16. A nanosecond later, she reminded herself who her traveling companion was.

But he surprised her.

"No need. The battle isn't focused here."

Ahsoka shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. There should at least be a probe."

"Not if you have a station that does your surveillance for you. If the Separatists control the communication relays, they control the feeds, the information—every aspect of station life."

Ahsoka turned to stare at the back of his twitching ears, the itch in her lekku returning with a vengeance. "So we're just—" She craned her neck at the console ahead of Xyre. "—casually flying into a trap at three hundred klicks an hour. Nice."

Xyre swiveled to face her. "It took six hours to tap and reroute every surveillance feed from Sector 12 through 16."

So _that_ was what he'd been up to all those hours. _Should've known. _"You're that good a slicer," she said, deadpan.

The seat—and its occupant—swung back to face the front of the shuttle. "Of course."

"Those droids had plenty of time to report our position. And they've had hours to figure out you've messed with the system." It took a tedious amount of time to even partially circumnavigate a planet.

"Perhaps, but the main battle is fixed between us and the Separatist command post. We pose no inherent risk."

Ahsoka snorted and turned back to the station flashing by below.

This whole sector was visibly gaudier than the last two, apparent even in the half-shadows of the emergency lights. Judging just by the outer edge of 12—the one she and Xyre had first landed in—and all of 13, those sectors had consisted of major processing hubs. The next two sectors still had multiple, huge landing bays for the harvesters and glimpses of elevated pedwalks.

But this sector—just one away from the battle—she could already spot three open shopping arcades from the height of the upper transrail, all of them tiered with walkways and sprawling banks of vegetation. Actual trees curved into arches between walkways or spilling down the sides of enclosed shops, twisted into shadow by the emergency half-light. She saw obvious nods to the sweeping towers of Coruscant in one of the arcades; the graceful lines and flowing fountains of Naboo in another; the elevated monoliths and swinging bridge-cities of Cato Neimoidia in the last, whipping by beneath her before the shuttle shot through another major transrail station and into a more enclosed area, beyond.

Casinos. Miniature resorts, enticing a new kind of clientele to Ringo Vinda.

Padmé had outlined Ringo Vinda's history—what the senator knew of it, at least, via the HoloNet and her contacts—in-between comm calls to finalize Ahsoka's ambassadorial status. "_New laws—especially vice leniency laws—are being tagged onto the war bills_," Padmé had said as an aside, while waiting to be connected through to Senator Garr Tau's office. "_Once the first military spending bill passed, it caused an avalanche of other, smaller bills to follow_." Her grimace had been plain. "_One of the many things I'd been afraid of, but it's like sweeping away a flood with a vibromop_."

Ahsoka had tried to keep her face carefully blank. "_You've used a vibromop_?"

Padmé had blinked at her, visibly nonplussed, before stifling a surprised laugh. "_Of course_!" She'd paused, then amended, "_Well, only if I couldn't convince my sister to do it_." Senator Tau's aide had chimed an alert, and Padmé had quickly covered the comm to whisper, "_So, no, I've never used one_," before greeting the other senator with a bright, "_Good morning_!"

Something in Padmé's tone had made Ahsoka connect the centers with crime families—that maybe the Hutts were trying to extend their influence while the war kept all the Jedi busy—but she'd seen Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa. This place lacked the gaudy bulk of a Hutt's taste.

All of it was new, too—probably fresh enough to smell the paint and newly-paned transparisteel—which meant Ringo Vinda had cultivated its interests.

_With who, though? _

Ahsoka shook her head. It wasn't important.

"An anomaly up ahead." Xyre's rough voice brought Ahsoka's thoughts back to the forward nav screens.

Ahsoka nudged herself fully upright and peered through the front panes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean an anomaly," he snapped, irritable as ever.

"_Some_thing's an anomaly," she muttered under her breath and ignored the flick of his ears. Ahsoka stepped forward to peer at the readings in front of him—then looked again. "An active train?"

"Powered, but immobile." He tapped at the reading and brought it into full view, but Ahsoka had already stepped close to peer at it through the front panes.

Through the half-light ahead, barred with occasional flashes of red emergency lights, she saw it in the distance: the bulbous rear of a transrail, polished to a dark shine and reflecting every flash of light from overhead and below. Another glance at the maintenance shuttle's board showed lifeforms aboard. A lot of them.

"Maybe trapped civilians?"

Xyre's grunt was singularly noncommittal.

For a brief moment, Ahsoka felt her way forward through the Force; it breathed out, distinct as the pulse of her lightsabers. But instead of any of the worry or concern she expected, she met with a miasma of helplessness, bitterness—apathy undercut by anger—all stinging her senses at once and she grounded herself quickly against it, taking a deep breath and shutting the majority out.

_Wow_. That was a bit much for a stuck train.

Beneath her feet, the shuttle whined as it decelerated, the grav buffers pressing against her montrals, and as they closed in on the transrail, she could see the seams for the hatches and the subdued lines where transparisteel gave way to brightly polished durasteel. The maintenance shuttle worked through an automatic docking, and as soon as the whole shuttle turned on its base and fitted the transrail's back against the now-open side door, Ahsoka had her hands along those seams, feeling for the tell-tale of a panel that would release any hatch.

"I'll manually override," Xyre said from the pilot's controls, snout swinging from one console to another. "We can lift onto another rail and bypass."

A subtle catch, a hydraulic hiss, and Ahsoka waited only long enough for the hatch to half-open before clambering into the semi-darkness beyond.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Ahsoka didn't spare him a backward glance. "They need help."

"_We_ have a mission."

Ahsoka paused, ducking down to glare at him. He hadn't even left the pilot's seat, but the dark fur at the back of his neck bristled. "No, we have _two_ missions. I promised Senator Amidala that I'd do what I could. And _we_ will get these people to safety."

"Every minute we spend here is lost on the greater objective."

Ahsoka gritted her teeth but still managed to hiss, "You told me your vision is on Coruscant. _Not_ Ringo Vinda." She jutted a finger at the windows, where somewhere beyond, the space battle still raged. "The campaign was estimated to last two weeks. _Weeks_. We have _time_—" she enunciated the word pointedly, in case his youngling-headed density kept him from hearing her, "—to help these people."

"Are you always this reckless?"

Ahsoka turned back toward the interior of the car. "If by reckless you mean I actually care about the people I swore an oath to—then yes."

"Need I remind you that you _left the Order_?"

Ahsoka let her back do the talking and lifted herself all the way into the transrail.

The rear car was dark, lit only by a blotchy patch of light at the far end and the emergency lights bleeding through the tinted transparisteel. It smelled of sweat and the metallic tang of new carpet and she hesitated a few steps away from the hatch, listening more than looking. Xyre pulled himself through behind her, grumbling all the while.

"Fine," he muttered, when she continued to ignore him. "We can detach the front car and carry on. If it makes you _feel_ better—" he twisted the word oddly enough that she gave him a pointed glare, "—we can get the rest of the train working. They can manage after."

Another blast of emotion—sickly, like the odd storms of Nar Shaddaa—hit Ahsoka. She stopped, one hand upraised. "You feel all that?"

"Feel what?"

Ahsoka waited, sorting those waves of emotion. "There's a lot of very frightened people on this train," she murmured, taking stock again of the car. It looked luxurious enough, even without the lights on. Comfortable and purposefully elegant, like the rest of this sector. It was hard to imagine that degree of fear while lounging on nerf-hide chairs. "There—again."

It was Xyre's turn to hesitate. "I was never a good reader." She glanced back at him, but he didn't meet her gaze. "Different skill set."

"You? Not a people person? I'm shocked."

Another begrudged, very canine grunt. Ahsoka swallowed a laugh.

They made their way in silence through the rear car, then a second one, just as empty. But through the frosted transparisteel at the front of the second, she could see vague, moving shapes.

By the time the adjoining door slid open, Ahsoka realized who the transrail's occupants were.

Or rather, _what_.

Twi'leks and Zeltrons; pretty, petite Pantorans and squat Aleena; Togrutans and even a Cathar. Females and males, covered in glitter or draped in faux-jewels, squashed into outfits that looked more like second skins—and in the Cathar's case, tiny bits of studded leather.

Every one of them wore the distinctive collar of a slave.

* * *

"_Skywalker can't even reach us. We're sitting with our _shebs _in the air!_"

Fives' shout through the private comm had a grating hardness to it that set Rex's teeth on edge.

Worse, Rex kriffing-well _knew_ their strategy wasn't working; every bit of ground they'd made over the last ten hours hadn't budged them any closer than thirty klicks to the command center, and their current hold on this particular processing bay was tenuous at best.

Rex dropped to one knee behind a cluster of downed SBDs, taking the brief cover to flick loose the empty powercell in one blaster and jam a recharge in with a quick slap against his thigh plating, his other wrist running a quick inspect along his belt. Supplies were holding at this stage, but the amount of resistance was unexpected.

If they couldn't make _any_ hold on the station—no matter how small—there wouldn't be a chance for replenishing drops, or recharge, or any of the necessary technicalities of a large campaign.

"Fives, _you_ were our setup. What the hell happened?"

"You fekking know what happened!" the ARC snapped off the comm, popping down on his knee next to the captain.

What always happened—that constant slip of information, a subtle drip that seemed to undermine every karking mission, like a sieve that sifted intel away and left only a pile of his brothers' dead bodies.

They needed Skywalker—hell, any Jedi—to turn the tide.

Well, not _any _Jedi.

Rex jerked his eyes to the side to clear the streaming data of his HUD and pull up the schemata of the drop zones, the detailed schedules and targets that had been estimated by initial intel. The 313th's Commander Doom had dropped five klicks west, along the banks of a processing hub at the edge of Sector 18. Based off the quarter report, it had been a devastating mess of a landing and during the last frayed comm call, General Tiplar had called for an immediate assist.

That was an hour ago; Torrent hadn't made any progress forward since.

Two new fatalities blinked in red along the bottom of his HUD.

Rex bit back another curse. "Give me a viable target. Something!"

"I've got an idea." Fives had angled himself up to provide cover fire for a medic, who'd darted in to drag out a wounded shiny. "But you're not gonna like it."

At the end of the bay, another legion of battle droids marched forward from beneath the cover of wide processing tubes and the heavy machinery that filtered the station's harvest into its transportable form. From this distance, the new arrivals' footsteps were drowned out by blaster fire and the calls of Rex's men echoing through his feed.

"Any option's better than this."

Fives shifted back, weight on the ball of one foot and the _kama_ slapping against plastoid. "You trust me, right?"

Rex glanced at Fives, at the familiar angles of his brother's bucket and the reflection of blue and red plasma in that black T-visor. Another fatality number ticked along the bottom of Rex's HUD. He jerked his chin. "This plan like your usual?"

Rex could _hear _the smirk on the ARC's face. "You think it'd be anything else?"

"Get me Yularen."

* * *

"Out of the question, Captain."

The _Resolute_ shuddered; below, half-hidden in the crew pit, the tacticians' voices took on a strident pitch. Admiral Yularen let his balance shift, hands still tucked behind his back and eyes trained between the station below and the holotable. Captain Appo stood at its other side, adjusting the flickering blue of a kneeling Captain Rex.

Yularen knew the _Resolute_. Nothing thus far in the campaign had proved an overt threat to her might—but that didn't negate the requirement of a staging area and a carved out segment of held space.

The boarding forces had no choice; they _would_ take their sectors.

"_Admiral, sir. We haven't moved forward in two. General Tiplar _needs _our assistance._"

"I have the utmost faith in your abilities, Captain. I don't need to remind you _we_—" He emphasized the word, tamping down his own irritation at the lack of progress. The Separatists had a seemingly unending supply of vulture droids, lurking in the shadows of Ringo Vinda's ridged hull and dark to Republic sensors. Skywalker's squadron had been decimated, but kept on, flashing into view even now through the broad viewing panes at the bridge's front, a speck of yellow and grey that disappeared just as quickly beyond Vinda's bulk.

Yularen shook his head. The Jedi's mood had gone from outright hostility to a bizarre, harsh coldness just in the weaning hours of the campaign. A disconcerting trend; Skywalker was anything but transparent about his particular thoughts on a matter. "We need those transrails," he began again, "to _hold _Ringo Vinda."

"_Sir, if we destroy the rails, we'll have a chance of at least taking Vinda. But from where we stand—_" A low rumble rolled the captain's blue holo forward and the transmission flickered in protest. "_—we're in no position to—_"

The transmission crackled. Yularen studied the hunch of the captain's shoulders as Appo adjusted the feed.

"What you are suggesting would require a coordinated effort to have any effect," Yularen replied. "Those transrails are equipped with safeguards to keep exactly that from happening."

The captain's helmet tipped for a breath before straightening. Another rumble shook the transmission. "_We've got a plan that might work._"

"'Might,' Captain?"

"_It _will_ work, sir._"

Yularen paused. "And the originator of this plan?"

"_ARC-trooper Fives, sir._"

Yularen closed his eyes. _Of course._

* * *

"Interesting," Xyre mused at her shoulder. "I suppose we found the Separatists' preferred shield."

Slaves.

It was just like Kadavo and finally she recognized that particular mix of emotions, rank with fear and the pall of hopelessness. At least pain wasn't the overwhelming majority here, like it'd been on Zygerria's processing world.

And a question rattled through the back of her mind. Were the slaves here _before_ the Separatists arrived?

"But an ineffectively small group." Xyre pushed past her, sublimely unfazed, and started through the car's wide main aisle. "Disconnect and we can go."

Before Ahsoka could dart forward—she'd half a mind to grab him by the scruff of his neck and maybe just throttle him for a moment—a bright pink Twi'lek male stepped in Xyre's way, enough of a snarl on his face that Ahsoka wondered if Xyre had met his match.

"That's far enough." The Twi'lek's voice lilted, thick with a Ryl accent, but so twisted with anger that Ahsoka could barely understand him. "You—you and that _Jedi_."

Wait_. What?_

"I'm not a Jedi—" she said, holding out her hands and somewhat grateful she still wore Padmé's ambassadorial robes—although her response was drowned out by his scoff.

"We were told you'd be coming." The Twi'lek flicked a disdainful glance at Ahsoka's robes. "_You_ have been all over the galaxy, eh? Your face on every screen. You think we'd not recognize one such as you?"

Ahsoka straightened, a distinctly uneasy feeling running down her spine.

"Impossible," Xyre said, dry and toneless as ever. At least he had stopped and stood rigidly before the Twi'lek, hands balled into fists at his sides. Ahsoka almost expected his fur to stand on end. "Communications have been disabled in this sector for six hours, including internal transrail comms. And I doubt a trial would be interesting enough to play on a casino's screens." Xyre looked the Twi'lek up and down. "Nor do you seem the type to pay attention."

Ahsoka fought the urge to slap a hand over her face.

The Twi'lek's laugh was ugly. He turned from Xyre to spread his hands and offer Ahsoka a mock bow. "Yes, he is right, yes? We slaves, we do not see the galaxy? We do not listen? Do not understand? Trust me, Jedi, we slaves know more than any other, no matter who chains us."

Xyre snorted. "That is not our present concern."

The Twi'lek grabbed Xyre by the tunic and lifted him clear off the carpet.

Against her better judgement, Ahsoka intervened.

"We would like to help—to help all of you," she added, projecting her voice out toward the rest of the car's occupants, "get out of here." It took a surprising amount of pressure on the Twi'lek's arm for Xyre to touch the floor again. "Could you explain the situation here?"

That didn't go over well, either. The Twi'lek's gaze pointedly traveled from her montrals to her boots. Her fingers twitched for her lightsabers, safely hidden under the folds of her robe. "You realize what the Separatists pay for one like you?" He leaned in close, and the stifling, sweet stench of his breath was enough to send her a step back. "I would be _free_."

"Not likely," Xyre pointed out. "The bounty would be pocketed by your owner." The flat black of his eyes flashed for a moment. "Although I'm curious. Which corporation owns you?"

The Twi'lek's face twisted in sudden, flushed rage. "No concern of yours!"

Oddly enough, even the other slaves seemed to agree. The ripple of movement was to turn away from them. No other voice spoke up.

"With all due respect, it _is_ my concern," Ahsoka said, again letting her voice carry. "We were sent here to make sure all civilians had left combat areas. And I assure you, the Jedi Order had no knowledge of the situation here."

If anything, the Twi'lek's face hardened, doing a fantastic impression of a pink rock formation. "_You_ are Jedi." He twisted the word and spat it at her. "Shouldn't you be out there fighting some battle right now? It is all you are good for now, yes?"

Ahsoka hissed in a sharp breath.

Was that all anyone thought of Jedi, anymore?

And why did that bother her _now_, when she'd made her choice and walked away?

Funny, the most vehement response came from Xyre. "She is _not_ who you believe her to be."

"Oh?" The pink Twi'lek leaned close to Xyre, lips pulled back in a sharp-toothed leer. "And what is she supposed to be now, eh? The pretty horn-head on a dog's leash?"

_That_ was enough. "We're neutral parties," she snapped, "and like I _said_, we're only here to help—"

"The Republic keeps slaves now." The Twi'lek sniffed in disgust, head tipped back and narrow-eyed glare focused down the length of his nose. In that moment, Ahsoka felt absurdly small and she bit her tongue from saying something entirely inappropriate. "Just _business_. You have no reason to help any of us."

"_No_—"

"Yet here we are, yes? We were brought here _months _before the Separatists arrived!"

Well, that answered one question. But the unease that itched in her lekku dropped straight to her stomach and left her sick. Interesting how the Republic was showing, over and over, its own ineffectiveness. All in the matter of a week.

"Miss Tano, I believe we should carry on," Xyre said. He sidestepped the Twi'lek and gestured for Ahsoka to follow.

Ahsoka gritted her teeth and turned her full attention back on the Twi'lek. "You can at least tell me if the trains have individual or macro-control over each car's system."

"It wouldn't do you any good," he spat, in disdainful predictability.

Ahsoka briefly closed her eyes. "Humor me, and maybe I can at least _help you_."

"It doesn't matter, Tano," Xyre broke in. He'd half-turned to face her, ears flattened in thorough irritation. "They're far enough away from the battle."

"_You_ have no say in this," she shot back.

She ignored Xyre's disgusted huff and brushed past them both. If the Twi'lek wasn't going to help, she'd figure it out on her own. Nothing in this car even looked like a control panel; it was all gleaming wood and subdued, warm lighting, so surely up ahead was a control car. "If we move back into Sector 13, we'll be far enough away to call for support from Ringo Vinda's surface."

"You—you Jedi, do you not _listen_?"

Ahsoka hesitated at something new in his voice—something desperate. She glanced back at the Twi'lek—and in that moment, the bitter disillusionment in his eyes echoed Barriss' own, from just days before, as she called out the Order on a betrayal of its own Code.

"Excuse me?" Ahsoka asked, blinking to reorient herself.

"You think we are going anywhere, yes? This train—it is a trap. For _you_."

* * *

Jammer had taken to cursing every few seconds. "Can't get a damn thing outta this fekking piece of corporate karkin' shi—"

Unlike Rhyd, Tup had—for the most part—wisely steered clear of the medic. But some things were too good to pass up.

"I take it your name wasn't from your comms experience," Tup noted, deadpan.

The pause of the man's hands from inside the guts of a comm-console should've sent Tup at least a few safe steps back, but Tup had dealt with Fives long enough to handle even Jammer's notorious temper.

"Keep it up, trooper," the medic muttered. "See how you like a hypo where the glowrods don't shine."

Tup snorted and left him and an anxiously hovering Rhyd to the overrides.

The maintenance side-corridor had curved around to dead-end at a ladder and a mid-range comms relay. It wasn't much more than a tiny, durasteel nook along the station's hull, bristling with bulky comm equipment, all in various stages of lock or emergency overrides. Jammer had gone from irritated to downright incensed after he'd buried himself under one console, then another, then another.

"Just one fekking hop to that damn receiver out there. That's all I vapin' _need_." A rattling crash, and the latest console's guts spilled halfway out into the relay's cramped center. "I wanna meet the dumb _sheb_ who put this code in here, because everything's readin' just fine—except there's—no—fardling—_signal_!"

"You can probably thank that Null," Tup said.

Jammer answered with about a dozen curses.

A viewing pane formed one wall of the relay and Tup sidestepped the mess to study Ringo Vinda herself, her dirty brown face half-lit by the distant, pale light of the system's single star. Her nightside glittered in tiny, red-pricked bits of civilization, scattered wide; not much actually lived on Ringo Vinda.

And west of them, just visible along the station's curve, raged the firefight; bright flashes lighting up the solid might of first the _Resolute_, and then the 313th's _Defender_. A Separatist dreadnought was on fire, listing hard to the pull of Ringo Vinda's gravity, but even as he watched, the _Defender_ took a hard hit and the white-hot flare of tibanna lit up the for'ard docking bays.

The fact that they were fighting and dying for another world of _stuff_—not people, really, just _resources_—was a bit like a raw scratch running down the back of his skull; a dull pain that mingled with the headache that had lingered since his pre-battle equipment check in Fives' quarters, that still throbbed, thirteen hours later, like some sort of insistent reminder.

A hiss of static turned Tup back to the other two.

"That's vapin' right!" Jammer's exultant shout from beneath the mostly disassembled console sent Rhyd in a hasty retreat, barely in time to avoid Jammer's swinging arm as the man rolled up and slapped his carbon-smeared bucket back on. A flick of his wrist, and he had a hand-held comm glowing a steady, blinking green. "Scramble sets are go, codes sent, and it looks like…"

Jammer hesitated, until a familiar voice piped through and the medic raised a fist in triumph—albeit, a short lived triumph, as both Tup and Jammer quickly recognized who'd picked up the signal.

"Resolute _to Torrent-Squad Six, do you copy?_" snapped Captain Appo. "_This is _Resolute to—"

"We read you, _Resolute_." Tup winced. Of all the brass to get in touch with.

"_Status, Squad Six._"

"Sergeant Vith and Roller Squads Two, Five, Eight, and—"

"_Acknowledged_," the captain cut him off. "_Your location?_"

Jammer took over. "A station comm-relay in Sector 16, ten klicks east of the original drop. We re-routed into the maintenance ducts, sir. Communications were blocked. We're—"

"_Your objective—_"

Tup closed his eyes. _Here it comes_. Appo was well-known for his unique ability to bring even a seasoned campaigner to tears.

"_—has changed, Squad Six. On the half-hour, you will receive instructions on detonating a point along your sector's main transrails._"

Tup glanced at the chrono, high along the edges of his HUD screen. Forty-five minutes to—wait, _what_?

"Sorry, sir, the—"

"_The Separatists are using the transrails to move their troops between sectors. We will disrupt that flow and force a corridor-by-corridor fight._"

And Tup thought a landing bay assault would be hard. What Appo was ordering amounted to taking a city one residential block after another, instead of just aiming for the infrastructure's weak spots. Apparently taking the landing bays had been harder than expected for _all_ units.

Jammer's visor was frozen, staring at the comm-link, that green light reflected in the familiar black. _He_ realized it, too. "Sir—"

"_This attack is a coordinated effort. On the fifteen, your scramble set will be six-niner-niner-besh-trill. ARC-trooper Fives will be your contact._"

_Ah_. Well, that explained a lot.

"Sir, we currently lack the resources for any sort of—"

"_Repeat, ARC-trooper Fives will be your contact._"

Jammer's irritated huff wasn't exactly subtle. "Copy that, sir."

Appo signed off with barely an acknowledgement, and the three clones stared at each other for a long moment after.

Jammer finally reached over and clasped a gloved hand on Rhyd's shoulder.

"Let's find ourselves a transrail, boys."

* * *

Which, in the end, wasn't hard; the maintenance corridors were also a maze of vertical shafts, following the curve of the station's inner hull. There were moments Tup knew only a thin skin of durasteel separated the three of them from the vacuum of space, a fact that shouldn't have itched so uncomfortably along the back of his neck, like he'd been stripped of his armor.

But at least they hadn't spotted a single droid since the landing bay.

Granted, Jammer's mood hadn't gotten any better, either.

"Up and through," Jammer barked from below, slapping at Tup's boot as Tup worked a manual override on another overhead hatchway. It wrenched open into dark hole of another transrail service walk. _Finally._

"How 'bout a protein cube down your throat?" Tup muttered.

Jammer's visor flashed at him from below. "Don't start."

Tup snorted as he shouldered open the half-closed service door into the outer catwalks—and then stopped abruptly.

_Something_ was working overtime in his squad's universal disfavor that day.

Below dropped a mass of empty space, half-lit by emergency lights, the towers of some shopping center reaching high but thrown in sharp, eerie shadow.

And in front of them, not twelve meters away, was...a transrail. Just like they needed.

But a train hovered above it, its front directly across from Tup and at least a dozen cars reaching back along the transrail, every bit of it long and sleek, with dark skin and deeply tinted windows that made Tup think of the pleasure district six levels down from 79s. The whole thing radiated a subdued sort of elegance.

It was also completely immobile.

Which was...disconcerting, considering he could see the vague shapes and limbs of countless sentients inside. Tup blinked his HUD into a heat reading, and the whole train lit up like the burning wreckage of that landing bay.

_All the vapin' luck_.

"I'm counting—" Jammer trailed off, his visor tracking the length of one car and likely the heat signatures within. "At least a hundred per car. Maybe more."

Tup blew out a long breath. Twelve hundred. _At least_. "That's a lot of civvies."

Jammer's half-hearted grunt echoed Tup's thoughts. They couldn't blow a transrail with over a thousand civilians trapped above it.

"Sir, I'm picking up traces of…of rhydonium."

"What?" Tup twisted around to follow Rhyd's line of sight; he'd crouched down on his stomach plating to examine the underside of the train. "How can you tell?"

"It leaves a slight heat signature, and trace crystals form a distinguishing chain…" The rookie trailed off, one finger in mid-air as he followed whatever he saw along the train's belly through his HUD.

Tup crouched down, but the low heat he saw, glittering in greenish-blue along the train's underside, didn't mean much to him. "Good spotting, trooper."

Rhyd's visor tipped up and Tup could practically see the embarrassed flush on the younger clone's face. Tup resisted patting him on the shoulder. _Poor kid._

"Looks like sloppy work, though," Rhyd said, ducking his head back down. "That's the only reason I can see it. Stray rhydonium crystals make for a messy explosion, not as good as a concentrated, focused source."

Jammer shrugged. "Does that matter, though? A boom is a boom."

"Yeah—but if the chain reaction gets spread out far enough, it doesn't burn right."

Jammer's irritated huff hunched Rhyd's shoulders forward. "So are these gonna blow, or not?"

"Well, yeah," Rhyd quickly answered, although he added in a mumble, "It's just the principle of it."

Tup ignored the both of them, studying the outlines of the sentients aboard and the train itself, the long, smooth lines that reminded Tup of Coruscant's Veckel Tower and the Senate Plaza, every bit of it clean and brilliantly shined.

A mess, at least, had some logic to it.

"Battle droids," Tup said, standing again. Jammer glanced at him, so Tup went on. "As far as we know, nothing but droids boarded the station for the take. Miners wouldn't be careless with explosives, so I'd guess Trench used what he had."

"But why?" Rhyd asked, still on his belly but his visor angled up at them. "Why blow up a train full of people?"

"Insurance," Jammer answered, this time.

Tup agreed, but something still didn't sit right. "Insurance for what, though?"

All three were silent at that.

"Rhydonium requires an activator," Tup said, taking quick stock of the ticking chrono. They had twenty minutes before the assigned contact with Fives. "Right?"

The younger clone nodded—although Jammer caught on first.

"Deactivate whatever bomb is on there, then send it back out of the sector?"

Tup tilted his visor at the other two. "Or move a bunch of civvies ourselves back to safety."

Jammer snorted. "I'd rather herd bantha."

"And we don't have time, either." Tup tipped his chin toward the nearest support—a wide, low-slung loop that bent itself beneath the transrail and out over the empty space below. If they could get underneath, ascension cables would take them the rest of the way.

But before they could edge themselves out onto the maintenance walk alongside the station's hull, Rhyd jerked to a stop. "Sirs! Something's going on."

Tup refocused on the train itself, saw a ripple of movement, heat signatures on the move, a rush of a figure and its abrupt recoil. And then—

A fireball at the train's rear—and then instantaneous, blinding white heat hit his eyes a fraction of a second before sound did, rushing through his buffers and pressing him back against the maintenance hatch. Rhyd's shoulder smashed into Tup's chest plate and Jammer's shout was lost, and Tup's HUD-read spun sickeningly as it tried to compensate. His headache reached a new pitch—screaming in his own mind, louder than the explosion—and then the wide space in front of him settled into the gray shadows of emergency light, the warm tint of the train's interior lamps—and the bright flash of fire, sheering off the end of the train.

The battered, burning remnant of what looked like a shuttle peeled off the mag tracks and fell, end over end, into the half-light below, metal squealing as it scraped walls and showered sparks with every elevated pedwalk it hit.

He recognized the blackened, twisted metal falling with it as the remains of the train's rear car.

At the train's end, one car hung completely askew from the entire track, lights flickering in a mad frenzy as the rest of the train swayed uneasily on its own mag-lock. The low, jarring moans of straining metal almost drowned out the high-pitched screams from inside, although beneath it all, he could hear the whine of failsafes attempting to compensate.

"_Fierfek!_" Jammer's fumbling grip on Tup's shoulder dragged his attention back around to the front car.

"Ah, _hells_."

The unmistakable glow of a lightsaber slashed a line of pure light; a familiar bright green, clearly visible even through the dark tint of transparisteel. As his HUD compensated, he recognized the hand at the hilt of the saber—and the figure held at the edge of the blade.

Tup slapped blindly at the comm, still set to their jury-rigged signal-hopper. Appo answered with a terse, staticky, "_This is the _Resolute_. Squad Six, do you not understand the parameters of the mission?_"

"Captain," he began, then cleared his throat at the catch in his voice.

Appo's tone sharpened. "_Report, trooper._"

Tup still hesitated. He licked his dry, cracked lips—tasted sweat and blood—and forced the words out.

"We have a situation."

* * *

**A/N**: Darth Real Life took careful aim over the last few months. Thank you to those who are sticking with it, despite the unexpected three-month hiatus; learning the ins and outs of plotting and writing is...certainly a headache-inducing task in itself. Many, many thanks to **impoeia**, for her unending patience and gentle wisdom;** laloga** for her constant encouragement and virtual shoulder to weep on; **Nyakai** for sheer, brilliant humor and unassailable friendship; and _**every. single. reader. **_who has clicked on that odd little title. Grab a seatbelt or maybe a flight harness; things only get wilder from here on out.


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